: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDQDfit.3113A 














\ 










it %•/ 

J- " 7 **. -1 

;-. \,/ .-ate- %^ .vaSte x/ - 



\** 







V 



-0? °^ ■ 








4* 






nlxe American Spirit in the 

Writings of Americans 

of Foreign Birtk 

SELECTIONS CHOSEN AND EDITED 
BY 

ROBERT E. STAUFFER, A. M.. B. L. S. 




*The Christopher Publishing House 
Boston, U. 5. A. 






Copyright 1922 
By The Christopher Publishing House 



©CU661218 



PRINTED IN U. S. A. 

APR -8 1922 



To my revered friend and teacher 

Joseph Lorain Shunk 

And to my younger friend 

Henry Praus 

The one born in the United States 

The other in far-away Czechoslovakia 

But in both of whom I have found 

True and noble manifestations 

Of the American spirit 



Let us judge our immigrants also out of their own mouths, as future 
generations will be sure to judge them. Mary Antin. 

He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient preju- 
dices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he 
has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he 
holds. . . . The American is a new man, who acts upon new prin- 
ciples ; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions* 

Crevecoeur. 

Where the schoolhouse banner flaunts the morning breeze, 
Where the rough farm student strides amid the wheat, 
Where the voice of knowledge fills a thousand halls, 
Where the athletes in their mimic warfare meet; 

Where the master grasps the brand 

Of lightning in his hand, 
And the hidden Powers of Air to service bent 
Proclaim the issue of the long experiment, 

I behold the future race 

Arise in strength and grace; 
Shall they falter? Shall they fail? Shall they endure? 

Lo, the onward march is sure. 

William lames Dawson. 



INTRODUCTION 

A visit to the public library of many towns and cities of 
five to twenty thousand inhabitants, and inquiry among per- 
sons of considerable and even college education, reveals a 
widespread unacquaintance with the writings of our foreign- 
born citizens. Seldom does one find the books of more than 
four or five of these authors upon the shelves of the smaller 
public and college libraries; yet these institutions are doing 
much to develop public opinion in countless communities made 
up for the most part of native Americans who have hitherto 
been largely ignorant of and indifferent to the condition and 
aims of the foreign population, but whose intelligent and 
sympathetic interest in the foreign-born must be aroused if 
the great gulf between the two is to be bridged. 

The funds of many libraries, it is true, are so limited as to 
preclude the purchase of a majority of these books, worth 
while as they are; yet the splendid American spirit to be 
found in many of them ought to be more familiar to Ameri- 
cans, whether native or foreign-born. This volume of selec- 
tions is offered, therefore, not as an equivalent for the read- 
ing of the complete works here represented, but to help stim- 
ulate a more general interest in their authors and in books 
of this type, and to show with a cumulative emphasis the 
essence of the genuine Americanism with which these writ- 
ings are imbued. 

As one reads these and other works of the foreign-born in 
historical sequence, he will notice that their manner of writ- 
ing has become less reflective and philosophical and more 
critical and impassioned, but that keeping pace there has 
been an intense and burning patriotism. The early colon- 
ists and immigrants were seldom touched except in their 
political liberties; recent immigrants have been growing in- 
creasingly sensitive to the infringement of their social and 
economic rights. This, of course, is a quality not peculiar 
to the writings of the foreign-born, but is incident to the 
modern industrial and social situation with conditions very 



10 INTRODUCTION 

different from those obtaining in the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries. The struggle against social forces with 
their great complexity and ever renewed and boundless en- 
ergy has demanded of the recent immigrants the highest 
qualities for success. 

Nearly all the selections included in this volume will be 
found charged with a strong human quality, revealing the 
poignant homesickness of the stranger in a new world, his 
sensitiveness, his forward-looking hope, his realization of 
both the humorous and the tragic side of his case, his fine 
hero-worship, his firm belief in the unique mission and high 
destiny of his adopted country, and his faith in the brother- 
hood of man and the dawning of a new day upon the earth. 

It is not within the scope of this introduction to plead for 
any particular immigration policy. Whether we shall adopt 
one of rigid restriction or assume a liberal attitude, and what 
shall be the bases of the selection of the immigrant in the 
future, are questions to be answered not by the petty poli- 
tician, the unscrupulous demagogue, the uninformed pro- 
vincial, or the alarmists of little faith who, in their hysteria, 
would completely reverse the traditions of the nation by 
closing the gates entirely, but are matters to be determined 
by fair-minded and representative leaders after a careful and 
unbiased study of the problem in its various economic, social 
and national aspects. The chief concern here is with our 
attitude toward the millions of un assimilated immigrants 
already among us. To them it would be well for most of 
us to give our attention before attempting to solve the in- 
tricate and perplexing question of an immigration policy. 
Perhaps if we did, we might get more light and arrive at a 
more unanimous and consistent conclusion regarding the ad- 
mission of those who are now said to be ready in such great 
numbers to knock at our gates. 

In these selections, it is believed, will be found convincing 
proof that to try to educate and Americanize the foreign- 
born by force is not only unwise and will prove futile, be- 
cause it flies in the face of the principles of human nature, 
but is also unnecessary. Still, the dejection on the part of 



INTRODUCTION II 

many persons over our apparent failure to assimilate the im- 
migrant is truly pathetic. But why so much despair about 
this, when countless thousands of native Americans have 
little or no realizing sense of the duties of citizenship? Who 
is the more culpable, the man who, being in a new land 
and often lonely and neglected, finds it difficult to overleap 
the barriers of timidity and suspicion and a foreign lan- 
guage and strange customs, in order to seize the larger oppor- 
tunities; or the man who, though born and reared in the 
midst of all the advantages of American life, fails to appre- 
ciate his precious heritage and treats with indifference or 
abuses the sacred right of franchise ? Certainly hostility and 
neglect will accomplish nothing, where hospitality and help- 
fulness may go far to induce the newcomers to avail them- 
selves of the opportunities and responsibilities open to them 
in America. 

An illustration of how readily the foreigner may respond 
to the least show of kindness and fellowship is afforded by 
the following incident. A traveller on a west-bound train 
out of New York was accosted by a young Italian immigrant, 
who handed him a card of the Italian Immigration Society 
on the reverse of which was written, "Please direct this man 
to Santa Cruz train." Now it happened that the American 
had once visited Italy and had picked up a smattering of the 
language, and partly by this and partly by the use of signs 
he did his best to convey the desired information. He then 
asked the young man into his own seat; and, as they talked 
together of Italy and the places the American had visited, 
the youth's face glowed with the joy of remembrance. And 
then it was revealed that this sturdy and warm-hearted Ital- 
ian, from whom the American might have turned as from a 
"dago" and "scum of the earth," was one of the heroes of 
the Great War; that he had been wounded in the terrible 
disaster of Caporetto, and had received from the Italian 
minister of war testimonials and medals for gallant conduct 
in battle. 

It is at least a question whether a vast amount of time, 
energy, and money has not been misspent in a hysterical en- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

deavor to get the adult immigrant to change his vernacular 
and foreign ways. Realizing from my own experience, both 
as a student and as a teacher of English to foreigners, the 
immense effort necessary to acquire even a rudimentary 
knowledge of a strange language after the plastic period of 
youth has passed, I am convinced that too much stress may 
be laid upon the importance of the mere acquisition of the 
English language by the adult immigrant. 

A change in the manners and customs of the immigrant 
has undoubtedly a useful and necessary part in his Ameri- 
canization; but undue emphasis upon mere externals may, 
with its false implications, easily create erroneous impres- 
sions. Just now there comes to mind in this connection an 
illustration prominently displayed upon the front page of one 
of our most respected periodicals, — a photograph of an immi- 
grant mother standing between her two sons, one of whom 
is garbed in American hat and overcoat, the other in uncouth 
workaday attire. Beneath the picture appears this ques- 
tion, "Which is Americanized?" One feels he must protest 
against the shallow and all too prevalent thinking which 
finds in the mere alteration of language and dress the essen- 
tials of Americanism, and which consequently has so little 
constructive and farsighted assistance to give to the momen- 
tous work of Americanization. It has been far too fre- 
quently demonstrated that a person may not only wear 
American clothes and speak English fluently, but may have 
been educated from his youth up in American institutions 
without being really Americanized. 

The elder generation should, of course, be aided in every 
reasonable and practicable way; but it should soberly be 
borne in mind that it is going to take decades, if not cen- 
turies, to Americanize America, and that the hope of the na- 
tion is in the children, both native and foreign-born. It is a 
splendid demonstration of the truth of this that the most 
fervid tributes to America come from the lips of those who 
have arrived in the United States in the impressionable years 
of youth. If, then, the rate of progress toward perfection 
is to be appreciably accelerated, there must be much more 



INTRODUCTION 13 

liberality in the support of the public schools and other edu- 
cational and humanizing institutions. 

What is an American, or what is Americanism? Many 
persons to-day are asking this question, to which perhaps 
only the future can give a complete answer. I venture to 
say, however, that an American is not one who expects to 
find in the United States Utopian conditions, but one who 
realizes the imperfections of American society and yet has 
faith in the ultimate goal toward which the diverse human 
elements here are struggling; that he is one who does not 
seek or propose any single panacea for the ills of the nation, 
but who, above all else, is conscious of his spiritual unity with 
those American minds that are striving in the sanest and best, 
though various, ways for the attainment of the high ends for 
which the republic was founded, and that desire to see the 
golden rule and "reason and the will of God" prevail in 
American life. 

And it is just this consciousness of spiritual unity that is 
perhaps the most intense and valuable element in the writings 
of those who have paid the highest price for their citizenship, 
and that is so well worth bringing to the attention of those 
who, whether native or foreign-born, have never passed from 
the "centre of indifference" into the "everlasting yea" of 
patriotism and national feeling. 

Much available and appropriate material has of necessity 
been omitted from this compilation, periodical articles in 
particular, with two exceptions, being excluded. But 
although the selections chosen constitute the utterances of 
only a small minority of the foreign-born, it is felt that their 
validity and representative character are not impaired. It 
must be remembered that there are thousands of American 
citizens of foreign birth leading contented and useful lives, — 
lawyers, physicians, clergymen, artists, teachers, and crafts- 
men, whose ideals and life-work have either not found ex- 
pression in books, or whose writings have been impersonal in 
character, but who, if they were to write down their feel- 
ings, would express themselves in sentiments similar to 
those of their gifted compatriots of literary tendencies; and 



14 INTRODUCTION 

even among the inarticulate mass there is a potential devo- 
tion, which, under the proper conditions, can be kindled into 
an ardent loyalty and patriotism. 

Theodore Roosevelt once said, in writing the foreword to 
one of the works here quoted : "When we tend to grow dis- 
heartened over some of the developments of our American 
civilization, it is well worth while seeing what this same 
civilization holds for starved and eager souls who have else- 
where been denied what here we hold to be as a matter of 
course, rights free to all — although we do not, as we should 
do, make these rights accessible to all who are willing with 
resolute earnestness to strive for them." That in part has 
been the aim in bringing these selections together. It is 
hoped that they may contribute not a little to a better under- 
standing between America, new and old, and that they may 
help to allay the fears of those who have been inclined to 
ascribe most of our national ills to the presence among us of 
the foreign-born, and who have had their share in the "wave 
of blind distrust of the foreigner" which has recently swept 
over the land. Surely, no one is justified in judging the 
foreign-born, or is worthy or fitted to aid in educating them 
in regard to the duties of citizenship, unless he has first ac- 
quainted himself with their hopes, their disappointments, 
their aspirations, the travail and pathos of their new birth, 
and their deep-rooted love for America, as set forth in their 
own writings ; for these are probably the strongest Americani- 
zation documents we possess and one of the surest proofs of 
the soundness of our institutions. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

For generous permission to use copyrighted selections 
grateful acknowledgment is given to the following publish- 
ers and individuals: To Messrs. Harper & Brothers for the 
selections by M. E. Ravage; to The Pilgrim Press for the 
selection by George A. Gordon; to Messrs. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons for the selection by Edwin L. Godkin; to The 
Four Seas Company for the selections by Robert M. Wer- 
naer; to Fleming H. Revell Company for the selections by 
Edward A. Steiner; to J. B. Lippincott Company for the 
use of part of the address, "True Americanism," by Carl 
Schurz; to The Christopher Publishing House for the selec- 
tions by Enrico C. Sartorio; to Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. 
for the selection by Felix Adler ; to Messrs. P. J. Kenedy & 
Sons, to the trustees of the estate of Mary J. A. O'Reilly, 
and to the daughters of the poet, Mrs. William E. Hocking, 
Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilly and Miss Elizabeth Boyle 
O'Reilly for the use of poems or parts of poems from the 
work of John Boyle O'Reilly; to The Century Company 
and to Miss Anzia Yezierska for the selection, "How I 
Found America," from the Century Magazine; to The Cen- 
tury Company also for the selection by Oscar Straus ; to Mr. 
Seraphim G. Canoutas for the selection from his "Hellenism 
in America" ; to The State Historical Society of Iowa and to 
Mr. Jacob Van der Zee for the selection from "The Hol- 
landers of Iowa" ; to Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. and 
to Mr. Stefano Miele for the selection from an article by 
Mr. Miele in the World's Work; to The Macmillan Com- 
pany for the selections by Angelo Patri and E. G. Stern ; to 
The Macmillan Company and The Outlook Company for 
the selections by Jacob Riis ; and to Mr. Otto H. Kahn and 
to Mr. John Kulamer for the selections appearing under their 
names. 

The selections by Mary Antin and Abraham M. Rihbany, 
and the one from Carl Schurz's "Abraham Lincoln" are used 
by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Hough- 



l6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

ton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of their 
works. 

Thanks are here also cordially given to those persons, in- 
cluding several authors not mentioned above, who, by their 
courtesies and encouragement, and in a number of instances 
by specific suggestions, have assisted in the work of compila- 
tion and editing. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 9 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 15 

PHILIP SCHAFF 20 

Cosmopolitan Character of "American Nationality" 21 

FRANCES" D'ARUSMONT 29 

The Constitution and Establishment of the Federal Gov- 
ernment 30 

FRANCIS LIEBER 33 

A German Immigrant Points Out the Dangers of Segre- 
gation 34 

Political Liberty in America 36 

CARL SCHURZ 38 

An Immigrant's Tribute to Lincoln 39 

"True Americanism" 40 

EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 44 

An Immigrant's Faith in Democracy 45 

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY 52 

"The Exile of the Gael" 52 

"The Pilgrim Fathers" 54 

"Liberty Lighting the World" 55 

"America" 57 

HANS MATTSON . ... 58 

Scandinavian Contribution to American Nationality 59 

JACOB RIIS " 61 

"A Young Man's Hero": An Immigrant's Tribute to 

Roosevelt 63 

JACOB VAN DER ZEE 66 

"Why Dutch Emigrants Turned to America" 67 

EDWARD BOK 71 

OSCAR SOLOMON STRAUS 72 

"America and the Spirit of American Judaism" 73 

FELIX ADLER 77 

The American Ideal 78 

MARY ANTIN 82 

An Immigrant's Tribute to the Public School and to 

George Washington 83 

"The Law of the Fathers": A View of the Declaration of 

Independence 89 



* Several titles have been supplied by the editor ; those given in 
the words of the author are enclosed in quotation marks. 



18 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY 91 

America Offers Something Better than Money 92 

An Immigrant Tells his Struggles with the English Lan- 
guage 94 

EDWARD ALFRED STEINER 96 

"The Criminal Immigrant" 97 

Industrialism and the Immigrant 105 

GEORGE A. GORDON in 

"The Foreign-born American Citizen" : Cost, Privilege and 

Duties of his Citizenship 112 

SERAPHIM G. CANOUTAS 121 

Americanization: Its Principles and Meaning 123 

STEFANO MIELE ." 125 

Some Obstacles to Americanization 126 

JOHN KULAMER 130 

"The American Spirit and Americanization" 131 

ENRICO C. SARTORIO 136 

Patronizing the Foreigner 137 

Training for Citizenship 140 

OTTO HERMANN KAHN 143 

"Capital and Labor — A Fair Deal" 144 

MARCUS ELI RAVAGE 150 

The New Immigration 151 

What College Life in the West Did for an Immigrant ... 152 

ELIZABETH G. STERN 160 

The Pathos of Re-ad] ustment 161 

ROBERT M. WERNAER 166 

"The Soul of America" 167 

"We Must Be True" 172 

ANGELO PATRI 173 

An Immigrant and His Father 174 

An Immigrant and the Children 177 

ANZIA YEZIERSKA 181 

"How I Found America" 182 



CONTENTS 



LIST OF AUTHORS WITH THEIR WRITINGS FROM 

WHICH SELECTIONS HAVE BEEN TAKEN 

FOR INCLUSION IN THIS VOLUME 

PAGE 

Adler, Felix 77 

The World Crisis and Its Meaning 
Antin, Mary 82 

The Promised Land 

They Who Knock at Our Gates 

Bok, Edward 71 

Canoutas, Seraphim G 121 

Hellenism in America 
D'Arusmont, Frances ( 1795-1852) 29 

Views of Society and Manners in America 
Godkin, Edwin L. (1831-1902) 44 

Problems of Modern Democracy 
Gordon, George A 1 1 1 

The Appeal of the Nation 
Kahn, Otto H 143 

Capital and Labor — A Fair Deal. Pam. pub. by the author 
Kulamer, John 130 

The American Spirit and Americanization 
Lieber, Francis (1800-1872) 33 

The Stranger in America 
Mattson, Hans (1832-1893) , 58 

Reminiscences 
Miele, Stef ano 125 

America As a Place to Make Money. (In "World's 

Work," December, 1920) 
O'Reilly, John Boyle (1844-1890) 52 

Selected Poems. Kenedy 
Patri, Angelo 173 

A Schoolmaster of the Great City 
Ravage, Marcus E 150 

An American in the Making 
Rihbany, Abraham M 91 

A Far Journey 
Riis, Jacob (1849-1914) 61 

The Making of an American 

Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen 
Sartorio, Enrico C 136 

Social and Religious Life of Italians in America 
Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) 20 

American Nationality. Pam. 



CONTENTS 

FAGS 

Schurz, Carl (1829-1906) 38 

Abraham Lincoln: An Essay. Houghton 

Speeches. 1865. Lippincott 
Steiner, Edward A 96 

From Alien to Citizen 

Nationalizing America 
Stern, Elizabeth G 160 

My Mother and I 
Straus, Oscar S , 72 

The American Spirit 
Van der Zee, Jacob 66 

The Hollanders of Iowa 
Wernaer, Robert M 166 

The Soul 0} America 
Yezierska, Anzia 181 

Hoiv I Found America. (In "Century Magazine," No- 
vember, 1920) 



The American Spirit in the Writings 
of Americans of Foreign Birth 



PHILIP SCHAFF 

It is as a theologian and as editor of the Schaff-Herzog Encyclo- 
pedia and other religious works that Philip Schaff is chiefly known; 
but there is a slighter work of his which hardly deserves the neglect 
into which it has fallen, — that is, his address on "American Nation- 
ality," delivered before the Irving Society of the College of St. 
James, Maryland, June nth, 1856. He was born at Coire, Switzer- 
land, and was educated at the Stuttgart Gymnasium and at the 
universities of Tubingen, Halle and Berlin. After traveling for a 
while as a private tutor he was called to a professorship in the 
theological seminary of the German Reformed Church at Mercers- 
burg, Pennsylvania, and came to the United States in 1844. In 
1870 he accepted the professorship of sacred literature in Union 
Theological Seminary, New York City. He revisited Europe several 
times, on one occasion going to Russia in behalf of oppressed people 
there. It is not unnatural that one who was born in a land that 
has sheltered so many nationalities, and where a strong spirit of 
liberty has always existed, should have so keen and farsighted an 
appreciation of the meaning and influence of the cosmopolitan 
character of the American nation. 



Cosmopolitan Character of American 
Nationality 

By nationality we understand the peculiar genius of a peo- 
ple which animates its institutions, prompts its actions and 
begets a feeling of common interest and sympathy. It is not 
the result of any compact, but an instinct of human nature 
in its social capacity, an expansion of the inborn love of self 
and kindred. To hate his own countrymen is as unnatural 
as to hate his own brothers and sisters. 

Nationality grows with the nation itself and acts as a pow- 
erful stimulus in its development. But on the other side it 
presupposes an organized state of society and is the result of 
a historical process. Barbarians have no nationality, because 
they are no nations, but simply material for nations. It is 
not only the community of origin and language, but also the 
community of rights and duties, of laws and institutions, of 
deeds and sufferings, of freedom and oppression, of literature 
and art, of virtue and religion, that enters into the definition 
of a nation and gives vigor to the sense of nationality. His- 
torical reminiscences of glory and woe, whether preserved in 
monuments, or written records, or oral traditions, popular 
songs and national airs, such as "God save the Queen," 
"Ye mariners of England," "Rule, Britannia," "Scots wha 
hae with Wallace bled," "Allons enfants de la patrie," "Was 
ist des Deutschen Vaterland," "The Star Spangled Banner," 
"Hail, Columbia," contribute powerfully to strengthen the 
national tie and to kindle the fire of national enthusiasm. 

Nationality begets patriotism, one of the noblest of natural 
virtues that has filled the pages of history with so many heroic 
deeds and sacrifices. Who can read without admiration the 
immortal story of Gideon, Leonidas, Cincinnatus, Horatius 
Codes, William Tell, Arnold von Winkelried, the Maid of 



22 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

Orleans, John Hampden, Prince William of Orange, 
Andreas Hofer, George Washington, who lived or died for 
their country ? 

True patriotism does not imply hatred or contempt of for- 
eigners, and is entirely compatible with a proper regard for 
the rights and welfare of other nations, j«ust as self-love and 
self-respect may and should coexist with the most generous 
philanthropy. A narrow-minded and narrow-hearted na- 
tionalism which walls out the life of the world, and for this 
very reason condemns itself to perpetual imprisonment in the 
treadmill of its own pedantry and conceit, may suit semi- 
barbarians, or the stagnant heathen civilization of China and 
Japan*, but not an enlightened Christian people. True and 
false nationalism and patriotism are related to each other, as 
self-love to selfishness. The first is a law of nature, the sec- 
ond a vice. We respect a man in the same proportion in 
which his self-love expands into love of kindred and country, 
and his patriotism into love of humanity at large. Washing- 
ton was always generous to the enemy and was the first to 
establish amicable relations with England after the conclu- 
sion of the American war. The Christian religion, which 
commands us to love God supremely and our neighbor as our- 
selves, tends to purify and elevate patriotism, like every other 
natural virtue, by emancipating it from the selfish, over- 
bearing, all-grasping passion of conquest, and making it con- 
tributory to the general welfare of the human family. One 
of the noblest acts of the English nation, as a nation, is the 
disinterested abolition of the African slave trade. 

The events of modern times tend more and more to break 
down the barriers between the nations, to bring the ends of 
the earth together and to realize the unity and universality 
of the human race. 

This we must steadily keep in view, if we would under- 
stand the distinctive character and mission of the American 
nation; i. e., the people of the United States, who are em- 
phatically called by that name, as the chief bearers of the 

♦The reader will, of course, note that this statement was made prior 
to the modern awakening in these Oriental countries. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 23 

historical life and future significance of the entire Western 
Continent. 

In discussing this interesting topic, we shall avoid, of 
course, the whirlpool of party politics, and endeavor to rise 
above those violent sectional strifes, which, for some time 
past, have been and are still agitating our country on the 
question of the true nature of Americanism. 

Of all the great nations of the earth none has entered into 
existence under more favorable auspices and prospects, none 
is better prepared and more clearly called to represent a 
compact, well defined and yet expansive, world-embracing 
nationality, than the American. Our motto, E Pluribus 
Unum, is an unconscious prophecy of our national character 
and destiny, as pointed out by the irresistible course of events 
and the indications of Providence. Out of many nations, 
yea, out of all the nations of Christendom, is to be gathered 
the one cosmopolitan nation of America on the strong and 
immovable foundation of the Anglo-Saxon race. . . . 

Let us now proceed to an analysis of the different elements, 
which enter into the composition of the American nationality 
and will, in their combined action, enable it to fulfil its great 
destiny. 

It is evident to the most superficial observer that the basis 
of our national character is English. It is so, not only in 
language, but also in manners and customs, in our laws and 
institutions, in the structure of our domestic, political and 
ecclesiastical life, in our literature and religion. It is per- 
fectly idle to think that this country will ever become Ger- 
man, or French, or Irish, or Dutch. Let them emigrate by 
hundreds of thousands from the continent of Europe, they 
will modify and enrich, but they can never destroy or mate- 
rially change the Anglo-Saxon ground-element of the Ameri- 
can people. . . . 

But with all due regard for good old England, America 
is by no means intended to be a mere copy or continuation of 
it. If our nationality, owing to its youth and the many for- 
eign elements still entering into its composition, is less solid 
and compact than that of our older brother, it is, on the 



24 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

other hand, more capable of expansion and development; it 
is composed of a greater variety of material and destined ulti- 
mately for more comprehensive ends by the Almighty Ruler 
of nations, who assigned us not an island, but a continent 
for a home, and two oceans for a field of action. 

If ever a nation was laid out on a truly cosmopolitan basis 
and gifted with an irresistible power of attraction, it is the 
American. Here where our globe ends its circuit seems to 
terminate the migration of the human race. To our shores 
they come in an unbroken stream from every direction. Even 
the tribes of Africa and Asia are largely represented 
amongst us and call our country their home. But whatever 
may be the ultimate fate of the red man, the negro and the 
Chinese, who are separated from us by the unsurmountable 
difference of race, it is evident that all the civilized nations 
of Europe, especially those of Germanic origin, have con- 
tributed and will continue to contribute to our stock. They 
s meet here on the common ground of freedom and equality, 
to renew their youth and to commingle at last into one 
grand brotherhood, speaking one language, pervaded by one 
spirit, obeying the same laws, laboring for one aim, and filling 
in these ends of the earth the last and the richest chapter in 
the history of the world. As Europe is a great advance on 
the civilization of Asia, so we have reason to believe that 
America will be in the end a higher continuation of the con- 
solidated life of Europe. The eyes of the East are instinct- 
ively turned to the West, and civilization follows the march 
of the sun. 

The history of the colonization and growth of this country 
strongly supports the view here taken. The descendants of 
England were indeed the chief, but by no means the only- 
agents in the Colonial period. The Dutch on the banks of 
the Hudson, the Swedes on the Delaware, the Germans in 
Pennsylvania and the neighboring States, the Huguenots in 
South Carolina, New York and Boston, were amongst our 
earliest and most useful settlers. In a more recent period 
Scotland, Ireland and all parts of Germany have made the 
largest contributions to our population. Florida, California 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 2$ 

and New Mexico are of Spanish origin. The French 
claimed once by right of exploration and partial occupation 
the immense central valley from the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
to the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Alleghenies and 
the Rocky Mountain; and although these possessions have 
long since been ceded to England and the United States, 
the French element can never be entirely effaced on the banks 
of the lower Mississippi or in Canada East. 

In the Revolutionary War the descendants of the Conti- 
nental Europeans, especially the Germans of Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, in proportion to their number, fought with as 
much zeal and success and shed their blood as freely for the 
independence of the country as the Anglo-Americans. Some 
of them, as the Muhlenbergs and the Hiesters, acquired con- 
siderable distinction as officers of the army or members of the 
first Congress. 

But a number of our most eminent Revolutionary heroes 
were not even native Americans, but came from different na- 
tions to offer us the aid of their means, their enthusiasm, 
their military skill and experience in the hour of trial. The 
Irish Montgomery died for us at the gates of Quebec. Gen- 
eral Mercer, who fell in the battle of Princeton, was a 
native of Scotland. Kosciusko, the Pole, paid his early vows 
to liberty in our cause, and his countryman, Pulaski, perished 
for it at Savannah. The noble Germans, Baron de Kalb, 
who shared with Gaines the glory of capturing Burgoyne 
and fell in the battle of Camden in South Carolina, bleeding 
of seven wounds, and Steuben, the pupil of Frederic the 
Great, and the Seven Years War, who left a handsome pen- 
sion to serve his adopted country and helped to decide the 
day at Yorktown, crowned in the new world the high mili- 
tary reputation which they had previously acquired in the 
old; they were amongst the most experienced officers in the 
American army, and did it essential service, especially by 
training, with immense labor, the raw recruits, and preparing 
them for the victories of the battle-field. Our Congress 
knew well how to appreciate their merits, by erecting to the 
former a monument at Annapolis, and by voting to the latter 



26 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

a handsome annual pension, to which the legislatures of 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York added large dona- 
tions of land. France threw the weight of her powerful 
moral influence and material aid into our scale, and sent us 
the Count de Rochambeau, Baron de Viomenil, and especi- 
ally the Marquis of Lafayette, the citizen of two worlds, 
whose name will be handed down to the latest American, as 
well as French posterity, in inseparable connection with 
Washington. The West Indies gave us Alexander Hamil- 
ton, who fought gallantly in the war, and, after its conclu- 
sion, organized our financial credit and took the most dis- 
tinguished part in the formation and defence of our Federal 
Constitution, thus joining to the laurels of the battle-field the 
more enduring honors of peace, like his friend, the Father 
of his Country, whom we justly revere and love as "first in 
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men." 

Thus all the leading nations of Christendom were actively 
and honorably represented in the first settlement of our 
country, and in that great struggle which resulted in the 
birth of a new nation, and thus earned a title to a share in 
the blessings of its freedom. . . . 

As long, then, as we have such an immense body of land 
waiting for living men, and such a gigantic task of the future 
before us, there is no cause to discourage immigration. Let 
this continent of land continue to attract another continent 
crowded with men, that they may thus both prove a blessing 
to each other. How could we cherish a proscriptive spirit 
without striking at the fundamental creed and glory of our 
institutions? How could we indulge in hatred of foreigners 
and shut the gate to the stranger, without insulting the mem- 
ory of our own fathers and of the fathers of this country? 
Let us never forget the sacred trust of civil and religious 
liberty committed to us; never forget our past history and 
our comprehensive destiny. Ourselves the children of the 
pilgrims of a former generation, let us welcome the pilgrims 
of the present day, and open a hospitable asylum to the op- 
pressed and persecuted of every Christian nation. Favored 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 27 

by the free gift of Providence with a territory almost as 
large as Europe, and capable of sustaining ten times the 
amount of our present population, let us cordially invite and 
encourage the immigrants, till prairies and forests, and moun- 
tains and valleys resound with the songs of living men and 
the praises of God. 

Here are our millions of acres stretching towards the set- 
ting sun and teeming with hidden wealth, that must be made 
available for the benefit of society. Here is room enough 
for all the science, learning, art, wisdom, virtue and religion 
of Europe, that, transplanted into a virgin soil and breathing 
the atmosphere of freedom, they may bring forth new blos- 
soms and fruit and open a new epoch in the onward march 
of civilization. Here is the general congress of the noblest 
nations of Christendom, the sterling, energetic Briton; the 
strong-willed, enterprising Scotch; the hard-working, gen- 
erous Irish; the industrious, deep-thinking German; the hon- 
est, liberty-loving Swiss; the hardy, thrifty Scandinavian; 
the even-tempered, tenacious Dutch; the easy, elegant 
Frenchman; the earnest, dignified Spaniard; the ingenious, 
imaginative Italian; the patriotic, high-minded Magyar and 
Pole, — that they might renew their youth, and, laying aside 
their prejudices and defects and uniting their virtues, may 
commingle into the one American nation, the freest, the 
most enlightened, the most comprehensive of all, the nation 
of the new world, the nation of the future. . . . 

The destiny and mission of such a cosmopolitan nation 
can hardly be estimated. It must be majestic as our rivers, 
magnificent as the Niagara Falls, lofty as the Rocky Moun- 
tains, vast as our territory, deep as the two oceans around 
it, far-reaching as the highways of commerce that already 
carries our name and influence to the remotest regions of the 
globe. History points to a boundless future before it, and 
nothing can prevent it from filling the most important pages 
in the annals of coming centuries [except] its own unfaith- 
fulness to its providential trust. . . . 

Such high views on the destiny of our nation, so far from 
nourishing the spirit of vanity and self-glorification, ought 



28 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

rather to humble and fill us with a deep sense of our respon- 
sibility to the God of nations, who entrusted us with a great 
mission for the world and the Church, not from any superior 
excellency of our own, but from free choice and an inscrut- 
able decree of infinite wisdom. Nor should we forget that 
there are fearful tendencies and dangers growing up in our 
national life, which threaten to unfit us for our work and to 
expose us to the judgment of the Almighty Ruler of the Uni- 
verse, who is not bound to any particular human instrumen- 
tality, but can raise a new generation on the ruins of our own 
to carry out His designs. It is only in steady view of these 
dangers, and by an earnest struggle against evil temptations, 
that we can at all succeed and accomplish the great ends for 
which Providence has called us into existence. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 29 



FRANCES D'ARUSMONT 

Frances D'Arusmont, better known as Frances Wright, was born 
in Dundee, Scotland. She seems to have inherited the intellectual- 
ity and liberal feeling of her father, who was a man of independent 
means and considerable accomplishments. Scarcely three years after 
her birth in 1795, she lost both her parents and was brought up by 
a maternal aunt in England. She was largely self-educated, and 
from early youth was keenly interested in histor}', particularly the 
history and condition of the United States. This interest found def- 
inite expression in her determination to sail for America in 18 18, 
where she spent two years in the States, publishing in 1821 her 
"Views of Society and Manners in America," a series of letters to a 
friend in England. While it is true that these letters are filled with 
prepossessions, they had a wholesome effect in counterbalancing a 
great deal of ignorance about and prejudice against the United 
States at that time. After going back to Europe for a short stay, 
she returned to the United States in 1824, eager to solve the slave 
question. In pursuance of this desire she bought a tract of land in 
Tennessee, about fourteen miles northwest of Memphis, and settled 
negro slaves on it, in the hope that they would work out their own 
liberty and that the Southern planters would be induced to follow 
her example. The experiment proved a failure, and, with health 
broken, she was ordered to Europe by her physician. On return- 
ing to America again, she became a member of Robert Owen's colony 
at New Harmony in Indiana, and with the assistance of Robert 
Dale Owen conducted a socialistic journal. At this time she fre- 
quently appeared on the lecture platform in many parts of the coun- 
try. During one of her numerous trips to Europe she was married in 
France to M. Phiquepal-D'Arusmont. She died at Cincinnati in 
1852. 

Though no fanatic, Frances D'Arusmont had several qualities of 
the visionary, courage and enthusiasm without prudence and judg- 
ment. It is greatly to her credit and honor, however, that she was 
among the first to realize the importance of the slavery question and 
to make an effort to settle it amicably. It is to be regretted that 
she did not devote her life solely to the solution of this momentous 
problem. 

The selection here given from her "Views of Society and Manners 
in America," follows the text of the first New York edition, 1821. 



30 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

THE CONSTITUTION AND ESTABLISHMENT 
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

What is most worthy of admiration in the history of 
America is not merely the spirit of liberty which has ever 
animated her people, but their perfect acquaintance with the 
science of government, which has ever saved that spirit from 
preying on itself. The sages who laid the foundation of her 
greatness possessed at once the pride of freemen and the 
knowledge of English freemen; in building the edifice, they 
knew how to lay the foundation; in preserving untouched 
the rights of each individual, they knew how to prevent his 
attacking those of his neighbor: they brought with them the 
experience of the best governed nation then existing; and, 
having felt in their own persons the errors inherent in that 
constitution, which had enlightened, but only partly pro- 
tected them, they knew what to shun as well as what to imi- 
tate in the new models which they here cast, leisurely and 
sagely, in a new and remote world. Thus possessed from the 
beginning of free institutions, or else continually occupied in 
procuring or defending them, the Colonies were well pre- 
pared to assume the character of independent States. There 
was less of an experiment in this than their enemies sup- 
posed.* Nothing, indeed, can explain the obstinacy of 
the English ministry at the commencement of the Revolu- 
tionary struggle but the supposition that they were wholly 
ignorant of the history of the people to whom they were op- 
posed. May I be forgiven the observation, that the inquiries 
of . . . have led me into the belief that some candid and 
well-informed English gentlemen of the present day have 
almost as little acquaintance with it as had Lord North. 

*Mr. Burke, who seems to have possessed a more thorough acquaint- 
ance with the institutions and character of the Colonists than any 
other British statesman, insisted much on "the form of their provincial 
legislative assemblies," when tracing the consequences likely to result 
from the oppressive acts of parliament. "Their governments," observed 
this orator, "are popular in a high degree ; some are merely popular ; 
In all, the popular representative is the most weighty ; and this share 
of the people, in their ordinary government, never fails to inspire them 
with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever 
tends to deprive them of their chief importance." (Author's note.) 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 31 

Respecting the Revolution itself, the interest of its military 
history is such as to fix the attention of the most thoughtless 
readers; but in this, foreigners sometimes appear to imagine, 
was expended the whole virtue of America. That a country 
which could put forth so much energy, magnanimity, and 
wisdom, as appeared in that struggle, should suddenly lose a 
claim to all these qualities, would be no less surprising than 
humiliating. If we glance at the civil history of these re- 
publics since the era of their independence, do we find no 
traces of the same character? Were we to consider only 
the national institutions, the mild and impartial laws, the 
full establishment of the rights of conscience, the multipli- 
cation of schools and colleges to an extent unknown in any 
other country of the world, all the improvements in every 
branch of internal policy which have placed this people in 
their present state of peace and unrivalled prosperity, we 
must allow them to be not only wise to their interests, but 
alive to the pleas of humanity; but there are not wanting in- 
stances of a yet more liberal policy. 

How seldom is it that history affords us the example of a 
voluntary sacrifice on the part of separate communities to 
further the common good! It appears to me that the short 
history of America furnishes us with more examples of this 
kind than that of any other nation, ancient or modern. 
Throughout the war of the Revolution, and for some years 
preceding it, the public feeling may be said to have been un- 
usually excited. At such times, men, and societies of men, 
are equal to actions beyond the strength of their virtue at 
cooler moments. Passing on, therefore, to the peace of 1783, 
we find a number of independent republics gradually recon- 
ciling their separate and clashing interests, each yielding 
something to promote the advantage of all, and sinking the 
pride of individual sovereignty in that of the united whole. 
The remarks made by Ramsay on the adoption of the federal 
constitution are so apposite that I cannot resist quoting them : 

"The adoption of this constitution was a triumph of virtue 
and good sense over the vices and follies of human nature; 
in some respects, the merit of it is greater than that of the 



32 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

Declaration of Independence. The worst of men can be 
urged to make a spirited resistance to invasion of their 
rights; but higher grades of virtue are requisite to induce 
freemen, in the possession of a limited sovereignty, voluntar- 
ily to surrender a portion of their natural liberties; to im- 
pose on themselves those restraints of good government which 
bridle the ferocity of man, compel him to respect the claims 
of others, and to submit his rights and his wrongs to be de- 
cided upon by the voices of his fellow citizens. The in- 
stances of nations which have vindicated their liberty by 
the sword are many ; of those which have made a good use of 
their liberty when acquired are comparatively few." 

Nor did the liberality of these republics evince itself only 
in the adoption of the general government. We find some 
making voluntary concessions of vast territories, that they 
might be devoted to national purposes; others releasing part 
of their own people from existing engagements, and leaving 
them to consult their wishes and convenience by forming 
themselves into new communities. 

Should we contrast this policy with that employed by other 
nations, we might hastily pronounce this people to be singu- 
larly free from the ordinary passions of humanity. But, no ; 
they are only singularly enlightened in the art of govern- 
ment; they have learned that there is no strength without 
union, no union without good fellowship, and no good fellow- 
ship without fair dealing; and, having learned this, they are 
only singularly fortunate in being able to reduce their 
knowledge to practice. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 33 



FRANCIS LIEBER 

In these latter days when the world has been inclined to wonder 
whether any good could come out of Prussia, it is interesting to re- 
call that Francis Lieber, who came to the United States in 1827 in 
the vanguard of the German political refugees of the early nineteenth 
century, was born in Berlin, March 18, 1800. His life was one of 
intense activity, both physical and mental. He fought in the Prus- 
sian army at Ligny and at Waterloo, and was severely wounded in 
the attack on Namur. After the Napoleonic wars he studied in Ber- 
lin ; and in 1819, because of his political ideas, he was imprisoned on 
the charge of plotting against the government. He was discharged 
without trial ; but, being forbidden to stay at the Prussian univer- 
sities, he took his degree at Jena in 1820. After taking part in 
the Greek Revolution of 1821 he went to Rome, where he became a 
tutor in the family of the famous historian, Niebuhr. On return- 
ing to Berlin he was rearrested and imprisoned, but released 
through the efforts of Niebuhr. Tired of this relentless persecu- 
tion, he left his native land forever in 1825. Before embarking for 
the New World he was a teacher in London for a short time. 

Lieber's first literary undertaking after reaching the United States 
was the editing of the Encyclopaedia Americana in Boston, 1827-32. 
For the next twenty years he was professor of political economy in 
South Carolina College, where his most important works were pro- 
duced, — "A Manual of Political Ethics," 1838; "Legal and Political 
Hermeneutics," 1839; "Civil Liberty and Self-government," 1852. 
In 1856 he was called to a similar professorship in Columbia Col- 
lege, New York. He was member of the French Institute and other 
learned societies in Europe and America. 

The spirit of the man and his work is manifested in his favorite 
motto, Nullum jus sine officio, nullum officium sine jure ("No right 
without its duties, no duty without its rights"). It is not necessary 
to mention his numerous writings except the one of immediate inter- 
est here, — "The Stranger in America," published in 1834, a series 
of letters written to a friend in Germany. In the selection that fol- 
lows, the reader will be struck by the wisdom and foresight in point- 
ing out the danger of segregation and the futility of German immi- 
grants attempting to erect a German state within the United States. 



34 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

A GERMAN IMMIGRANT POINTS OUT 
THE DANGERS OF SEGREGATION 

The Germans, as I said, form a most valuable addition to 
our population, when mingled with the great predominant 
race inhabiting the northern part of this continent. When- 
ever colonists settle among a different nation, in such num- 
bers and so closely together that they may live on among 
themselves, without intermixture with the original inhabi- 
tants, a variety of inconveniences will necessarily arise. Liv- 
ing in an isolated state, the current of civilization of the 
country in which they live does not reach them; and they 
are equally cut off from that of their mother country: men- 
tal stagnation is the consequence. They remain a foreign 
element, an ill- joined part of the great machinery of which 
they still form, and needs must form, a part. Sometimes, 
indeed, particular circumstances may alter the view of the 
case. When the French Protestant colonists were received 
into Prussia, it was perhaps judicious to allow them, for ex- 
ample in Berlin, to form for a time a community for them- 
selves, to have their own jurisdiction, schools, and churches, 
because they were more perfect in many branches of indus- 
try than the people among whom they settled ; and, had they 
been obliged to immerge forthwith, their skill, so desirable 
to those who received them, might have been lost. 

At present, however, they too are immerged in the mass of 
the population. Besides, the inconvenience arising from their 
forming a separate community was never very great, since 
they were few in number, and belonged by their professions 
to the better educated classes. But take an example in the 
Hussites, who settled in Germany; remember the Bohemian 
village near Berlin, called Rixdorf, the inhabitants of which 
obstinately refused intermarrying with Germans, and many 
of whom, until very recently, continued to speak Bohemian 
only. Those, therefore, who lately proposed to form a 
whole German state in our west, ought to weigh well their 
project before they set about it, if ever it should become 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 35 

possible to put this scheme into practice, which I seriously 
doubt. "Ossification," as the Germans call it, would be the 
unavoidable consequence. These colonists would be unable, 
though they might come by thousands and tens of thousands, 
to develop for themselves German literature, German lan- 
guage, German law, German science, German art; every- 
thing would remain stationary at the point where it was 
when they brought it over from the mother country, and 
within less than fifty years our colony would degenerate 
into an antiquated, ill-adapted element of our great national 
system, with which, sooner or later, it must assimilate. 
What a voluntary closing of the eyes to light would it be 
for a colony among people of the Anglican race, which, in 
point of politics, has left every other race far behind, to 
strive to isolate itself! 



36 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



POLITICAL LIBERTY IN AMERICA 

As a thousand things co-operated in ancient Greece to pro- 
duce that unrivalled state of perfection in which we find the 
fine arts to have been there, — a happy constellation of the 
most fortunate stars, — so a thousand favorable circumstances 
concur in America to make it possible that a far greater 
amount of liberty can be introduced into all the concerns of 
her political society than ever was possible before with any 
other nation, or will be at any future period, yet also requir- 
ing its sacrifices, as the fine arts with the Greeks required 
theirs. 

The influence of this nation has been considerable already ; 
it will be much more so yet in ages to come; political ideas 
will be developed here, and have a decided effect on the 
whole European race, and, for aught I know, upon other 
races. But as the Grecian art has kindled the sense of the 
beautiful with many nations, but never could be equalled 
again (as a national affair), so it is possible that political no- 
tions, developed here and received by other nations, will have 
a sound influence only if in their new application they are 
modified to the given circumstances ; for it is not in the power 
of any man or nation to create all those circumstances under 
the shade of which liberty reposes here. Politics is civil arch- 
itecture, and a poor architect indeed is he who forgets three 
things in building: the place where the building is to be 
raised, the materials with which he has to build, and the ob- 
ject for which the structure is erected. If the materials are 
Jews of Palestine, and if the object of the fabric be to keep 
the people as separate from neighbors as possible, the archi- 
tect would not obtain his end by a constitution similar to that 
of one of our new States. 

It was necessary for the Americans, in order to make them 
fit to solve certain political problems, which, until their solu- 
tion here, were considered chimerical (take as an instance 
the keeping of this immense country without a garrison), 
that they should descend from the English, should begin as 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 37 

persecuted colonists severed from the mother country, and 
yet loving it with all their heart and all their soul; to have 
a continent, vast and fertile, and possessing those means of 
internal communication which gave to Europe the great su- 
periority over Asia and Africa ; to be at such a distance from 
Europe that she should appear as a map; to be mostly Prot- 
estants, and to settle in colonies with different charters, so 
that, when royal authority was put down, they were as so 
many independent States, and yet to be all of one metal, so 
that they never ceased morally to form one nation, nor to 
feel as such. 

You may say, "Strange, that an abuse of liberty, as this 
apparent or real party strife in election contests actually is, 
should lead you to the assertion that no nation is fitter for 
a government of law." Yet I do repeat it. How would it 
be with other nations? It would be after an election of this 
kind that the real trouble would only begin; we see an in- 
stance in South America. Here, on the other hand, as soon 
as the election is over, the contest is settled, and the citizen 
obeys the law. "Keep to the right, as the law directs," you 
will often find on sign-boards on bridges in this country. It 
expresses the authority which the law here possesses. I 
doubt very much whether the Romans, noted for their obe- 
dience to the law, held it in higher respect than the Ameri- 
cans. 



38 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



CARL SCHURZ 

Carl Schurz, probably the most eminent of German immigrants 
to the United States, was born in Rhenish Prussia, in 1829. He 
came to America in 1852 and settled in Missouri, from which State 
fee was sent to Congress as Senator. He served as a general in the 
Union Army during the Civil War. In 1875 he removed to New 
York City and was editor of The Evening Post from 188 1 to 1884- 
He was active in support of civil service reform, and as a political 
thinker commanded high respect. His most notable works are his 
"Speeches," his "Reminiscences," a "Life of Henry Clay," and "Abra- 
ham Lincoln: an Essay." The last was originally published in The 
Atlantic Monthly as a review of "Abraham Lincoln: A History," by 
Nicolay and Hay. As a tribute to the life and work of Lincoln it 
is worthy to stand beside the "Commemoration Ode" of Lowell and 
the memorial poems of Whitman. Both from his natural sym- 
pathies and endowments and because of his participation in the 
events of the time, Schurz was eminently qualified to write on the 
subject. With fine enthusiasm and yet avoiding extravagant eulogy, 
he never loses sight of the essentially human characteristics of the 
great President. The following passage comprises the closing words 
of the essay. The selections on "True Americanism" are taken from 
an address delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the 18th of April, 
1859. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 39 



AN IMMIGRANT'S TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN 

To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has already 
become a half-mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic 
distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but 
also loses in distinctness of outline and feature. This is in- 
deed the common lot of popular heroes; but the Lincoln le- 
gend will be more than ordinarily apt to become fanciful, as 
his individuality, assembling seemingly incongruous qualities 
and forces in a character at the same time grand and most 
lovable, was so unique, and his career so abounding in start- 
ling contrasts. As the state of society in which Abraham 
Lincoln grew up passes away, the world will read with in- 
creasing wonder of the man who, not only of the humblest 
origin, but remaining the simplest and most unpretending of 
citizens, was raised to a position of power unprecedented in 
our history; who was the gentlest and most peace-loving of 
mortals, unable to see any creature suffer without a pang in 
his own breast, and suddenly found himself called to con- 
duct the greatest and bloodiest of our wars; who wielded 
the power of government when stern resolution and relent- 
less force were the order of the day, and then won and ruled 
the popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his 
nature; who was a cautious conservative by temperament 
and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping so- 
cial revolution of our time; who, preserving his homely 
speech and rustic manner even in the most conspicuous posi- 
tion of that period, drew upon himself the scoffs of polite 
society, and then thrilled the soul of mankind with utter- 
ances of wonderful beauty and grandeur; who, in his heart 
the best friend of the defeated South, was murdered because 
a crazy fanatic took him for its most cruel enemy; who, 
while in power, was beyond measure lampooned and ma- 
ligned by sectional passion and an excited party spirit, and 
around whose bier friend and foe gathered to praise him — 
which they have since never ceased to do — as one of the 
greatest of Americans and the best of men. 



40 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



TRUE AMERICANISM 

It is one of the earliest recollections of my boyhood that 
one summer night our whole village was stirred up by an 
uncommon occurrence. I say our village, for I was born 
not far from the beautiful spot where the Rhine rolls his 
green waters out of the wonderful gate of the Seven Moun- 
tains, and then meanders with majestic tranquillity through 
one of the most glorious valleys of the world. That night 
our neighbors were pressing around a few wagons covered 
with linen sheets and loaded with household utensils and 
boxes and trunks to their utmost capacity. One of our 
neighboring families was moving far away across a great 
water, and it was said they would never again return, And 
I saw silent tears trickling down weather-beaten cheeks, and 
the hands of rough peasants firmly pressing each other, and 
some of the men and women hardly able to speak when they 
nodded to one another a last farewell. At last the train 
started into motion, they gave three cheers for America, 
and then in the first gray dawn of the morning I saw them 
wending their way over the hill until they disappeared in the 
shadow of the forest. And I heard many a man say, how 
happy he would be if he could go with them to that great 
and free country, where a man could be himself. 

That was the first time that I heard of America, and my 
childish imagination took possession of a land covered partly 
with majestic trees, partly with flowery prairies, immeasur- 
able to the eye, and intersected with large rivers and broad 
lakes, — a land where everybody could do what he thought 
best, and where nobody need be poor because everybody was 
free. 

And later, when I was old enough to read, and descrip- 
tions of this country and books on American history fell into 
my hands, the offspring of my imagination acquired the colors 
of reality, and I began to exercise my brain with the 
thought what man might be and become when left perfectly 
free to himself. And still later, when ripening into man- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 4 1 

hood, I looked up from my schoolbooks into the stir and bus- 
tle of the world, and the trumpet-tones of struggling human- 
ity struck my ear and thrilled my heart, and I saw my na- 
tion shake her chains in order to burst them, and I heard 
a gigantic, universal shout for Liberty rising up to the skies ; 
and at last, after having struggled manfully and drenched 
the earth of Fatherland with the blood of thousands of noble 
beings, I saw that nation crushed down again, not only 
by overwhelming armies, but by the dead weight of customs 
and institutions and notions and prejudices, which past cen- 
turies had heaped upon them, and which a moment of en- 
thusiasm, however sublime, could not destroy; then I con- 
soled an almost despondent heart with the idea of a youth- 
ful people and of original institutions clearing the way for an 
untrammeled development of the ideal nature of man. Then 
I turned my eyes instinctively across the Atlantic Ocean, and 
America and Americanism, as I fancied them, appeared to 
me as the last depositories of the hopes of all true friends of 
humanity. 

I say all this, not as though I indulged in the presump- 
tuous delusion that my personal feelings and experience 
would be of any interest to you, but in order to show you 
what America is to the thousands of thinking men in the 
old world, who, disappointed in their fondest hopes and de- 
pressed by the saddest experience, cling with their last rem- 
nant of confidence in human nature, to the last spot on 
earth where man is free to follow the road to attainable 
perfection, and where, unbiased by the disastrous influence 
of traditional notions, customs, and institutions, he acts on 
his own responsibility. They ask themselves : Was it but a 
wild delusion when we thought that man has the faculty to 
be free and to govern himself? Have we been fighting, were 
we ready to die, for a mere phantom, for a mere product 
of a morbid imagination? This question downtrodden hu- 
manity cries out into the world, and from this country it 
expects an answer. . . . 

They speak of the greatness of the Roman Republic ! Oh, 
sir, if I could call the proudest of Romans from his grave, I 



42 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

would take him by the hand and say to him, Look at this 
picture, and at this! The greatness of the Roman Republic 
consisted in its despotic rule over the world ;the greatness of the 
American Republic consists in the secured right of man to 
govern himself. The dignity of the Roman citizen consisted 
in his exclusive privileges; the dignity of the American citi- 
zen consists in his holding the natural rights of his neigh- 
bor just as sacred as his own. The Roman Republic recog- 
nized and protected the rights of the citizen, at the same 
time disregarding and leaving unprotected the rights of man; 
Roman citizenship was founded upon monopoly, not upon 
the claims of human nature. What the citizen of Rome 
claimed for himself, he did not respect in others; his own 
greatness was his only object; his own liberty, as he regarded 
it, gave him the privilege to oppress his fellow-beings. His 
democracy, instead of elevating mankind to its own level, 
trampled the rights of man into the dust. The security of 
the Roman Republic, therefore, consisted in the power of 
the sword ; the security of the American Republic rests in the 
equality of human rights ! The Roman Republic perished by 
the sword; the American Republic will stand as long as the 
equality of human rights remains inviolate. Which of the 
two Republics is the greater — the Republic of the Roman, or 
the Republic of man? 

Sir, I wish the words of the Declaration ot Independence, 
"that all men are created free and equal, and are endowed 
with certain inalienable rights," were inscribed upon every 
gatepost within the limits of this Republic. From 
this principle the Revolutionary Fathers derived their claim 
to independence; upon this they founded the institutions of 
this country, and the whole structure was to be the living 
incarnation of this idea. This principle contains the pro- 
gramme of our political existence. It is the most progressive, 
and at the same time the most conservative one; the most 
progressive, for it takes even the lowliest members of the 
human family out of their degradation, and inspires them 
with the elevating consciousness of equal human dignity; the 
most conservative, for it makes a common cause of individual 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 43 

rights. From the equality of rights springs identity of our 
highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights 
without striking a dangerous blow at your own. And when 
the rights of one cannot be infringed without finding a ready 
defence in all others who defend their own rights in de- 
fending his, then, and only then, are the rights of all safe 
against the usurpation of governmental authority. 

This general identity of interests is the only thing that 
can guarantee the stability of democratic institutions. 
Equality of rights, embodied in general self-government, is 
the great moral element of true democracy; it is the only 
reliable safety-valve in the machinery of modern society. 
There is the solid foundation of our system of government; 
there is our mission; there is our greatness; there is our 
safety; there, and nowhere else! This is true Americanism, 
and to this I pay the tribute of my devotion. 



44 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 

Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born of English ancestry at Moyne, 
County Wicklow, Ireland, on October 2, 1831. His father, the Rev. 
James Godkin, a Presbyterian minister of literary talents, after be- 
ing forced from his pulpit for espousing the cause of Young Ireland, 
became a journalist of some distinction. The son received his pre- 
paratory education at Armagh, and at Silcoates School, Wakefield, 
Yorkshire. In 1846 he entered Queen's College, Belfast. After grad- 
uating from this institution in 1851, he went to London to study law 
at Lincoln's Inn. After some journalistic experience in the Crimea 
and in Belfast, he came to America in 1856 and settled in New 
York. His real career began w 7 ith the founding of The New York 
Nation in 1865. His connection with this journal was both long and 
distinguished, and his efforts for the encouragement of a sound and 
enlightened public opinion have recently been appropriately recog- 
nized in the semi-centenary volume, "Fifty Years of American 
Idealism," edited by Gustav Pollak. He contributed many incisive 
essays on political and economic subjects to various magazines. The 
most important of these have been collected in three volumes, "Re- 
flections and Comments," "Problems of Modern Democracy," "Un- 
foreseen Tendencies of Democracy." It is from the opening essay of 
the second that the following selection is taken. 

Wendell Phillips Garrison, his associate, said of him: "As no 
American could have written Bryce's 'American Commonwealth' or 
Goldwin Smith's 'History of the United States,' so it may be doubted 
if any native of this country could have erected the standard of 
political independence which Mr. Godkin set up in The Nation. and 
maintained in The Evening Post. He did this, however, not as a 
foreigner, but as an American to the core. A utilitarian of the 
school of Bentham, an economist of the school of John Stuart Mill, 
an English Liberal to whom America, with all its flagrant incon- 
sistency of slaveholding, was still the hope of universal democracy, 
he cast in his lot with us, became a naturalized citizen, took an 
American wife — gave every pledge to the land of his adoption ex- 
cept that of being a servile follower of party." Brilliant, thought- 
ful, questioning, he was keenly sensible of the many evil tendencies 
in modern democracy; yet with philosophic insight he rejected the 
unsound comparisons drawn by many political thinkers between 
ancient aristocratic democracies and modern democracy, which he 
viewed as a new experiment and therefore to be tested by new 
principles and new conditions. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 45 



AN IMMIGRANT'S FAITH IN DEMOCRACY* 

If, indeed, the defects which foreign observers see, and 
many of which Americans acknowledge and deplore, in the 
politics and society of the United States were fairly charge- 
able to democracy, — if "the principle of equality" were neces- 
sarily fatal to excellence in the arts, to finish in literature, 
to simplicity and force in oratory, to fruitful exploration in 
the fields of science, to statesmanship in the government, to 
discipline in the army, to grace and dignity in social inter- 
course, to subordination to lawful authority, and to self- 
restraint in the various relations of life, — the future of the 
world would be such as no friend of the race would wish to 
contemplate; for the spread of democracy is on all sides 
acknowledged to be irresistible. Even those who watch its 
advance with most fear and foreboding confess that most 
civilized nations must erelong succumb to its sway. Its 
progress in some countries may be slower than in others, but 
it is constant in all; and it is accelerated by two powerful 
agencies, — the Christian religion and the study of political 
economy. 

The Christian doctrine that men, however unequal in 
their condition or in their gifts on earth, are of equal value 
in the eyes of their Creator, and are entitled to respect and 
consideration, if for no other reason, for the simple one that 
they are human souls, long as it has been preached, has, 
strange to say, only very lately begun to exercise any per- 
ceptible influence on politics. It led a troubled and pre- 
carious life for nearly eighteen hundred years in conven- 
ticles and debating clubs, in the romance of poets, in the 
dreams of philosophers and the schemes of philanthropists. 
But it is now found in the cabinets of kings and states- 
men, on the floor of parliament houses, and in the most se- 
cret of diplomatic conferences. It gives shape and founda- 

*From "Problems of Modern Democracy." Copyright, 1S9G, by 
Charles Scribmer's Sons. By permission of the publishers. 



46 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

tion to nearly every great social reform, and its voice is heard 
above the roar of every revolution. 

And it derives invaluable aid in keeping its place and ex- 
tending its influence in national councils from the rapid 
spread of the study of political economy, a science which is 
based on the assumption that men are free and independent. 
There is hardly one of its principles which is applicable to 
any state of society in which each individual is not master of 
his own actions and sole guardian of his own welfare. In a 
community in which the relations of its members are regu- 
lated by status and not by contract, it has no place and no 
value. The natural result of the study and discussion which 
the ablest thinkers have expended on it during the last 
eighty years has been to place before the civilized world in 
the strongest light the prodigious impulse which is given to 
human energy and forethought and industry, and the great 
gain to society at large, by the recognition in legislation of 
the capacity, as well as of the right, of each human being 
to seek his own happiness in his own way. Of course no 
political system in which this principle has a place can long 
avoid conceding to all who live under it equality before the 
law; and from equality before the law to the possession of an 
equal share in the making of the laws, there is, as every- 
body must see who is familiar with modern history, but a 
very short step. 

If this spread of democracy, however, was sure, as its en- 
emies maintain, to render great attainments and great ex- 
cellence impossible or rare, to make literary men slovenly 
and inaccurate and tasteless, artists mediocre, professors of 
science dull and unenterprising, and statesmen conscience- 
less and ignorant, it would threaten civilization with such 
danger that no friend of progress could wish to see it. But 
it is difficult to discover on what it is, either in history or 
human nature, that this apprehension is founded. M. de 
Tocqueville and all his followers take it for granted that the 
great incentive to excellence, in all countries in which ex- 
cellence is found, is the patronage and encouragement of an 
aristocracy; that democracy is generally content with medi- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 47 

ocrity. But where is the proof of this? The incentive to 
exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful 
in its operation in all civilized countries, is the desire of 
distinction ; and this may be composed either of love of fame 
or love of wealth, or of both. In literary and artistic and 
scientific pursuits, sometimes the strongest influence is ex- 
erted by a love of the subject. But it may be safely said that 
no man has ever yet labored in any of the higher callings to 
whom the applause and appreciation of his fellows was not 
one of the sweetest rewards of his exertions. There is prob- 
ably not a masterpiece in existence, either in literature or in 
art, probably few discoveries in science have ever been made, 
which we do not owe in a large measure to the love of dis- 
tinction. Who paints pictures, or has ever painted them, 
that they may delight no eye but his own? Who writes 
books for the mere pleasure of seeing his thoughts on paper? 
Who discovers or invents, and is willing, provided the 
world is the better of his discoveries or inventions, that an- 
other should enjoy the honor? Fame has, in short, been in 
all ages and in all countries recognized as one of the strong- 
est springs of human action — 

"The spur that doth the clear spirit raise 
To scorn delight and live laborious days, — 

sweetening toil, robbing danger and poverty and even death 
itself of their terrors. 

What is there, we would ask, in the nature of democratic 
institutions, that should render this great spring of action 
powerless, that should deprive glory of all radiance, and put 
ambition to sleep? Is it not notorious, on the contrary, 
that one of the most marked peculiarities of democratic soci- 
ety, or of a society drifting toward democracy, is the fire of 
competition which rages in it, the fevered anxiety which 
possesses all its members to rise above the dead level to 
which the law is ever seeking to confine them, and by some 
brilliant stroke become something higher and more remark- 
able than their fellows? The secret of that great restless- 



48 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

ness, which is one of the most disagreeable accompaniments 
of life in democratic countries, is in fact due to the eagerness 
of everybody to grasp the prizes of which in aristocratic 
countries only the few have much chance. And in no other 
society is success more worshipped, is distinction of any kind 
more widely flattered and caressed. Where is the successful 
author, or artist, or discoverer, the subject of greater homage 
than in France or America? And yet in both the principle 
of equality reigns supreme; and his advancement in the 
social scale has gone on pari passu in every country with the 
spread of democratic ideas and manners. Grub Street was 
the author's retreat in the aristocratic age; in this demo- 
cratic one, he is welcome at the King's table, and sits at the 
national council board. In democratic societies, in fact, ex- 
cellence is the first title to distinction; in aristocratic ones, 
there are two or three others which are far stronger, and 
which must be stronger, or aristocracy could not exist. The 
moment you acknowledge that the highest social position 
ought to be the reward of the man who has the most talent, 
you make aristocratic institutions impossible. But to make 
the thirst for distinction lose its power over the human heart, 
you must do something more than establish equality of condi- 
tions; you must recast human nature itself. . . . 

There are some, however, who, while acknowledging that 
the love of distinction will retain its force under every form 
of social or political organization, yet maintain that to excel 
in the arts, science, or literature requires leisure, and the pos- 
session of leisure implies the possession of fortune. This men 
in a democratic society cannot have, because the absence of 
great hereditary wealth is necessary to the perpetuation of 
democracy. Every man, or nearly every man, must toil for a 
living ; and therefore it becomes impossible for him to gratify 
the thirst for distinction, let him feel it ever so strongly. The 
attention he can give to literature or art or science must be 
too desultory and hasty, his mental training too defective, to 
allow him to work out valuable results or conduct important 
researches. To achieve great things in these fields, it is said 
and insinuated, men must be elevated, by the possession of 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 49 

fortune, above the vulgar, petty cares of life; their material 
wants must be provided for before they concentrate their 
thoughts with the requisite intensity on the task before them. 
Therefore it is to aristocracy we must look for any great ad- 
vance in these pursuits. 

The history of literature and art and philosophy is, how- 
ever, very far from lending confirmation to this opinion. If 
it teaches us anything, it teaches us that the possession of 
leisure, far from having helped men in the pursuit of knowl- 
edge, seems to have impeded them. Those who have pur- 
sued it most successfully are all but invariably those who 
have pursued it under difficulties. The possession of great 
wealth no doubt gives facilities for study and cultivation 
which the mass of mankind do not possess; but it at the 
same time exerts an influence on the character which, in a 
vast majority of cases, renders the owner unwilling to avail 
himself of them. We owe to the Roman aristocracy the 
great fabric of Roman jurisprudence; but, since their time, 
what has any aristocracy done for art and literature, or law? 
They have for over a thousand years been in possession of 
nearly the whole resources of every country in Europe. They 
have had its wealth, its libraries, its archives, its teachers, at 
their disposal; and yet was there ever a more pitiful record 
than the list of "Royal and Noble Authors." One can hardly 
help being astonished, too, at the smallness and paltriness of 
the legacies which the aristocracy of the aristocratic age has 
bequeathed to this democratic age which is succeeding it. It 
has, indeed, handed down to us many glorious traditions, 
many noble and inspiring examples of courage and fortitude 
and generosity. The democratic world would certainly be 
worse off than it is if it never heard of the Cid, or Bayard, 
or Du Guesclin, of Montrose, or Hampden, or Russell. But 
what has it left behind it for which the lover of art may be 
thankful, by which literature has been made richer, philoso- 
phy more potent or more fruitful? The painting and sculp- 
ture of modern Europe owe not only their glory, but their 
very existence, to the labors of poor and obscure men. The 
great architectural monuments by which its soil is covered 



50 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

were hardly any of them the product of aristocratic feeling 
or liberality. If we except a few palaces and a few for- 
tresses, we owe nearly all of them to the labor or the genius 
or the piety of the democratic cities which grew up in the 
midst of feudalism. If we take away the sum total of the 
monuments of Continental art all that was created by the 
Italian republics, the commercial towns of Germany and 
Flanders, and the communes of France, and by the unaided 
efforts of the illustrious obscure, the remainder would form a 
result poor and pitiful indeed. We may say much the same 
thing of every great work in literature, and every great dis- 
covery in science. Few of them have been produced by men 
of leisure, nearly all by those whose life was a long struggle 
to escape from the vulgarest and most sordid cares. And 
what is perhaps most remarkable of all is, that the Catholic 
Church, the greatest triumph of organizing genius, the most 
impressive example of the power of combination and of dis- 
cipline which the world has ever seen, was built up and has 
been maintained by the labors of men drawn from the hum- 
blest ranks of society. 

Aristocracy applied itself exclusively for ages to the pro- 
fession of arms. If there was anything at which it might 
have seemed hopeless for democracy to compete with it, it 
was in the raising, framing and handling of armies. But 
the very first time that a democratic society found itself com- 
pelled to wage war in defence of its own ideas, it displayed 
a force, an originality, a vigor and rapidity of conception, in 
this, to it, new pursuit, which speedily laid Europe at its 
feet. And the great master of the art of war, be it ever 
remembered, was born in obscurity and bred in poverty. 

Nor, long as men of leisure have devoted themselves to 
the art of government, have they made any contributions 
worth mentioning to political science. They have displayed, 
indeed, consummate skill and tenacity in pursuing any line 
of policy on which they have once deliberately fixed ; but all 
the great political reforms have been, though often carried 
into effect by aristocracies, conceived, agitated, and forced on 
the acceptance of the government by the middle and lower 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 51 

classes. The idea of equality before the law was originated 
in France by literary men. In England, the slave-trade was 
abolished by the labors of the middle classes. The measure 
met with the most vigorous opposition in the House of Lords. 
The emancipation of the negroes, Catholic emancipation, 
Parliamentary reform, law reform, especially the reform in 
the criminal law, free trade, and, in fact, nearly every 
change which has had for its object the increase of national 
happiness and prosperity, has been conceived by men of low 
degree, and discussed and forced on the upper classes by men 
busy about many other things. 

We are, however, very far from believing that democratic 
society has no dangers or defects. What we have been en- 
deavoring to show is that the inquiry into their nature and 
number has been greatly impeded by the natural disposition 
of foreign observers to take the United States as a fair 
specimen of what democracy is under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances. The enormous extent of unoccupied land at 
our disposal, which raises every man in the community 
above want, by affording a ready outlet for surplus popula- 
tion, is constantly spoken of as a condition wholly favorable 
to the democratic experiment, — more favorable than could 
possibly offer itself elsewhere. In so far as it contributes to 
the general happiness and comfort, it no doubt makes the 
work of government easy; but what we think no political 
philosopher ought to forget is that it also offers serious ob- 
stacles to the settlement of a new society on a firm basis, 
and produces a certain appearance of confusion and insta- 
bility, both in manners and ideas, which unfit it to furnish a 
basis for any inductions of much value as to the tendencies 
to defects either of an equality of conditions or of demo- 
cratic institutions. 



52 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY 

The extremely romantic life of John Boyle O'Reilly began on June 
28th, 1844, at Dowth Castle, near the town of Drogheda in Ireland. 
His chivalrous nature and passionate love of country and of liberty 
were stimulated by the traditions and beauty of the surroundings 
and by the atmosphere of legend and story in which he was brought 
up by his schoolmaster father and clever and gifted mother. As a 
young man he was employed as a compositor in a printing office in 
Ireland and later at Preston in Lancashire. In consequence of his 
connection with the Fenian movement he was banished to Australia, 
whence he escaped to America in 1869, settling in Boston, where hit 
ability as poet, journalist and orator was quickly recognized. 
Maurice Francis Egan has said of him: "In the United States, 
after adventures by sea and land, and tortures and suffering borne 
with a heroism that was both Greek and Christian, he found the 
spirit of freedom in concrete form. Our country satisfied his aspiia- 
tions for liberty; he loved Ireland not less, but America more; he 
was exiled from the land of his birth, yet he found ample consola- 
tion in the country he had chosen." 

The life of the poet by James Jeffrey Roche, together with his 
complete poems and speeches, edited by Mrs. O'Reilly, was published 
by Cassell in 1891. A volume of selected poems was published by 
Kenedy in 1913. 



THE EXILE OF THE GAEL 

"What have ye brought to our Nation-building, Sons of the Gael ? 
What is your burden or guerdon from old Innisfail ?" 

"No treasure we bring from Erin — nor bring we shame nor guilt! 
The sword we hold may be broken, but we have not drooped the 

hilt! 
The wreath we bear to Columbia is twisted of thorns, not bays, 
And the songs we sing are saddened by thoughts of desolate days. 
But the hearts we bring for Freedom are washed in the surge of 

tears, 
And we claim our right by a People's fight outliving a thousand 

vears!" 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 53 

"What bring ye else to the Building?" 

"Oh, willing hands to toil ; 
Strong natures tuned to the harvest-song and bound to the kindly 

soil; 
Bold pioneers for the wilderness, defenders in the field, — 
The sons of a race of soldiers who never learned to yield. 
Young hearts with duty brimming — as faith makes sweet the due; 
Their truth to me their witness they cannot be false to you!" 

"What send ye else, old Mother, to raise our mighty wall ? 
For we must build against Kings and Wrongs a fortress never to 
fall." 

"I send you in cradle and bosom, wise brain and eloquent tongue, 
Whose crowns should engild my crowning, whose songs for me 

should be sung. 
Oh, flowers unblown, from lonely fields, my daughters with hearts 

aglow, 
With pulses warm with sympathies, with bosoms pure as snow, — 
I smile through tears as the clouds unroll — my widening river that 

runs! 
My lost ones grown in radiant growth — proud mothers of free-born 

sons." 

"It is well, aye, well, old Erin ! The sons you give to me 

Are symboled long in flag and song — your Sunburst on the Sea. 

All mine by the chrism of Freedom, still yours by their love's belief ; 

And truest to me shall the tenderest be in a suffering Mother's grief. 

Their loss is the change of the wave to the cloud, of the dew to the 

river and main; 
Their hope shall persist through the sea and the mist, and thy 

streams shall be filled again. 
As the smolt of the salmon go down to the sea, and as surely come 

back to the river, 
Their love shall be yours while your sorrow endures, for God guard- 

eth His right forever." 



54 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 

In every land wherever might holds sway 

The Pilgrims' leaven is at work to-day. 

The Mayflower's cabin was the chosen womb 

Of light predestined for the nations' gloom. 

God grant that those who tend the sacred flame 

May worthy prove of their Forefathers' name. 

More light has come, — more dangers, too, perplex: 

New prides, new greeds, our high condition vex. 

The Fathers fled from feudal lords and made 

A freehold state; may we not retrograde 

To lucre-lords and hierarchs of trade. 

May we, as they did, teach in court and school 

There must be classes, but no class shall rule: 

The sea is sweet, and rots not like the pool. 

Though vast the token of our future glory, 

Though tongue of man hath not told such a story, 

Surpassing Plato's dream, More's phantasy, still we 

Have no new principles to keep us free. 

As Nature works with changeless grain on grain, 

The truths the Fathers taught we need again. 

Depart from this, though we may crowd our shelves 

With codes and precepts for each lapse and flaw, 

And patch our moral leaks with statute law, 

We cannot be protected from ourselves! 

Still must we keep in every stroke and vote 

The law of conscience that the Pilgrims wrote; 

Our seal their secret: Liberty can be; 

The State is freedom if the Town is free. 

The death of nations in their work began; 

They sowed the seed of federated man. 

Dead nations were but robber-holds, and we 

The first battalion of Humanity! 

All living nations, while our eagles shine, 

One after one, shall swing into our line ; 

Our freeborn heritage shall be the guide 

And bloodless order of their regicide; 

The sea shall join, not limit; mountains stand 

Dividing farm from farm, not land from land. 

O People's Voice! when farthest thrones shall hear; 

When teachers own ; when thoughtful rabbis know ; 

When artist minds in world-wide symbol show; 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 55 

When serfs and soldiers their mute faces raise; 
When priests on grand cathedral altars praise ; 
When pride and arrogance shall disappear, 
The Pilgrims' Vision is accomplished here ! 



LIBERTY LIGHTING THE WORLD* 

Majestic warder by the nation's gate, 

Spike-crowned, flame-armed like Agony or Glory, 

Holding the tablets of some unknown law, 

With gesture eloquent and mute as Fate, — 

We stand about thy feet in solemn awe, 

Like desert-tribes who seek their sphinx's story, 

And question thee in spirit and in speech ; 

What art thou? Whence? What comest thou to teach? 

What vision hold those introverted eyes 

Of revolutions framed in centuries? 

Thy flame — what threat, or guide for sacred way? 

Thy tablet — what commandment? What Sinai? 

Lo! as the waves make murmur at thy base, 

We watch the somber grandeur of thy face, 

And ask thee — what thou art. 

I am Liberty — God's daughter! 
My symbols — a law and a torch; 
Not a sword to threaten slaughter, 
Nor a flame to dazzle or scorch ; 
But a light that the world may see 
And a truth that shall make men free. 

I am the sister of Duty, 
And I am the sister of Faith; 
To-day adored for my beauty, 
To-morrow led forth to death. 
I am she whom ages prayed for; 
Heroes suffered undismayed for; 
Whom the martyrs were betrayed for! 

•The poem is given in the abridged form in which it is printed i» 
the volume of O'Reilly's selected poemis, published by P. J. Kenedy * 
Sons. 



56 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

I am Liberty! Fame of nation or praise of statute is naught to me: 
Freedom is growth and not creation: one man suffers, one man is 

free. 
One brain forges a constitution ; but how shall the million souls be 

won? 
Freedom is more than a resolution — he is not free who is free alone. 

Justice is mine, and it grows by loving, changing the world like the 

circling sun; 
Evil recedes from the spirit's proving as mist from the hollows 

when night is done. 
Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding; know the rights and the 

rights are won ; 

Wrong shall die with the understanding — one truth clear and the 

work is done. 
Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge, whose need is ninety 

enslaved for ten; 
My word shall stand against mart and college; The planet belongs 

to its living men! 
And hither, ye w T eary ones and breathless, searching the seas for a 

kindly shore, 
I am Liberty! patient, deathless — set by love at the nation's door. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 57 



AMERICA* 

O Land magnanimous, republican! 

The last for Nationhood, the first for Man! 

Because thy lines by Freedom's hand were laid, 

Profound the sin to change or retrograde. 

From base to cresting let thy work be new ; 

'Twas not by aping foreign ways it grew. 

To struggling peoples give at least applause; 

Let equities, not precedent, subtend your laws ; 

Like rays from that great Eye the altars show, 

That fall triangular, free states should grow, 

The soul above, the brain and hand below. 

Believe that strength lies not in steel nor stone; 

That perils wait the land whose heavy throne, 

Though ringed by swords and rich with titled show, 

Is based on fettered misery below ; 

That nations grow where every class unites 

For common interests and common rights; 

Where no caste barrier stays the poor man's son, 

Till step by step the topmost height is won ; 

Where every hand subscribes to every rule, 

And free as air are voice and vote and school ! 

A nation's years are centuries. Let Art 

Portray thy first, and Liberty will start 

From every field in Europe at the sight. 

"Why stand these thrones between us and the light?" 

Strong men will ask, "Who built these frontier towers 

To bar out men of kindred blood with ours?" 

Oh. this thy work, Republic! this thy health, 
To prove man's birthright to a commonwealth ; 
To teach the peoples to be strong and wise, 
Till armies, nations, nobles, royalties, 
Are laid at rest with all their fears and hates; 
Till Europe's thirteen monarchies are states, 
Without a barrier and without a throne, 
Of one grand federation like our own ! 

•This poem, which is here quoted in part only, was read at the re- 
union of the Army of the Potomac, in Detroit, June 14, 1882, General 
<Grant heing present on the occasion. 



58 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



HANS MATTSON 

Hans Mattson was the son of an independent freeholder and suc- 
cessful farmer of the parish of Onnestad, near the city of Kristian- 
stad, Sweden. In an unpretending little cabin built by his father 
he spent the first years of his happy and peaceful childhood. On 
one occasion he was taken by his parents to see the king, who was 
to pass by on the highway near his home. In the midst of the con- 
fusion he did succeed in getting a glimpse of King Oscar I. In 
his childish mind he had fancied that the king and his family and 
all others in authority were the peculiar and elect people of the 
Almighty, but after this event he began to entertain serious doubts 
as to the correctness of his views on this matter. 

After a year and a half in the Swedish army he decided to leave 
the service and try his luck "in a country where inherited names 
and titles were not the necessary conditions of success." He says: 
"At that time America was little known in our part of the country, 
only a few persons having emigrated from the whole district. But 
we knew that it was a new country, inhabited by a free and inde- 
pendent people, that it had a liberal government and great natural 
resources, and these inducements were sufficient for us." 

From the time of his arrival at Boston until his final settling in 
Minnesota, his career is but typical of that of the many sturdy and 
enterprising pioneers of Scandinavian origin who have contributed 
so much to the building of the Northwest. He served as a colonel 
in the Civil War, and in 1869 was elected as Secretary of State in 
Minnesota. Later he was Consul General of the United States in 
India. 

The selection that follows is taken from the final chapter of his 
"Reminiscences," the English translation of which was published in 
1892. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 59 

SCANDINAVIAN CONTRIBUTION TO 
AMERICAN NATIONALITY 

It is a great mistake which some make, to think that it is 
only for their brawn and muscle that the Northmen have 
become a valuable acquisition to the American population; 
on the contrary, they have done, and are doing, as much as 
any other nationality within the domain of mind and heart. 
Not to speak of the early discovery of America by the Scan- 
dinavians four hundred years before the time of Columbus, 
they can look back with proud satisfaction on the part they 
have taken in all respects to make this great republic what it 
is to-day. 

The early Swedish colonists in Delaware, Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey worked as hard for liberty and indepen- 
dence as the English did in New England and in the South. 
There were no tories among them, and when the Continental 
Congress stood wavering equal in the balance for and against 
the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it was a 
Swede, John Morton (Mortenson), of the old Delaware 
stock, who gave the casting vote of Pennsylvania in favor of 
the sacred document. 

When, nearly a century later, the great rebellion burst 
upon the land, a gallant descendant of the Swedes, Gen. 
Robert Anderson, met its first shock at Fort Sumter, and, 
during the bitter struggle of four years which followed, the 
Scandinavian-Americans were as true and loyal to their 
adopted country as their native-born neighbors, giving their 
unanimous support to the cause of the Union and fighting 
valiantly for it. Nor should it be forgotten that it was the 
Swede, John Ericsson, who, by his inventive genius, saved 
the navy and the great seaports of the United States, and 
that it was another Swede by descent, Admiral Dahlgren, 
who furnished the model for the best guns of our artillery. 
Surely love of freedom, valor, genius, patriotism and relig- 
ious fervor was not planted in America by the seeds brought 
over in the Mayflower alone. 



60 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

Yes, it is verily true that the Scandinavian immigrants, 
from the early colonists of 1638 to the present time, have 
furnished strong hands, clear heads and loyal hearts to the 
republic. They have caused the wilderness to blossom like 
the rose; they have planted schools and churches on the hills 
and in the valleys ; they have honestly and ably administered 
the public affairs of town, county and state; they have 
helped to make wise laws for their respective common- 
wealths and in the halls of Congress; they have, with honor 
and ability, represented their adopted country abroad; they 
have sanctified the American soil by their blood, shed in 
freedom's cause on the battle-fields of the Revolution and the 
Civil War; and, though proud of their Scandinavian ances- 
try, they love America and American institutions as deeply 
and as truly as do the descendants of the Pilgrims, the starry 
emblem of liberty meaning as much to them as to any other 
citizen. 

Therefore, the Scandinavian-American feels a certain 
sense of ownership in the glorious heritage of American soil, 
with its rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, woods and prairies, 
and in all its noble institutions; and he feels that the bless- 
ings which he enjoys are not his by favor or sufferance, but 
by right ; — by moral as well as civil right. For he took pos- 
session of the wilderness, endured the hardships of the pioneer, 
contributed his full share toward the grand results accom- 
plished, and is in mind and heart a true and loyal American 
citizen. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 6l 



JACOB RIIS 

Jacob Riis, who may well stand as a representative of the best 
that America has received from the Scandinavian countries, was 
born at Ribe, Denmark, May 3, 1849. He emigrated to the United 
States in 1870, where he subsequently obtained a position as reporter 
on The New York Tribune and The Evening Sun. It is at the close 
of his well-known autobiography that he relates how he came to a 
realization that he was indeed an American in heart as well as in 
name. In words of patriotic fervor he says: — 

"I have told the story of the making of an American. There re- 
mains to tell how I found out that he was made and finished at 
last. It was when I went back to see my mother once more and, 
wandering about the country of my childhood's memories, had come 
to the city of Elsinore. There I fell ill of a fever and lay many 
weeks in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful 
Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me, they rolled my bed 
into a room overlooking the sea. The sunlight danced upon the 
waves, and the distant mountains of Sweden were blue against the 
horizon. Ships passed under full sail up and down the great water- 
way of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day bore no 
message to me. I lay moodily picking at the coverlet, sick and dis- 
couraged and sore — I hardly knew why myself. Until all at once 
there sailed past, close inshore, a ship flying at the top the flag of 
freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright 
and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, discourage- 
ment, and gloom ! Forgotten weakness and suffering, the cautions 
of doctor and nurse. I sat up in bed and shouted, laughed and 
cried by turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. They 
thought I had lost my head, but I told them no, thank God ! I had 
found it, and my heart, too, at last. I knew then that it was my 
flag; that my children's home was mine, indeed; that I also had 
become an American in truth. And I thanked God, and, like unto 
the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed and went home, 
healed." 

Besides being the author of several books, such as "The Battle 
with the Slum," "How the Other Half Lives," and "The Children of 
the Poor," dealing with the life of the people of New York's East 
Side, he was an active and practical reformer. In the course of his 
struggles to ameliorate the condition of the poor, he met Theodore 
Roosevelt and formed the friendship which inspired the volume 
represented in the following selection. Riis and Roosevelt had much 
in common. There was in both a great deal of the old Anglo-Saxon 
fighting spirit, ennobled by modern influences and employed in de- 



62 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

fense of right and justice. Their mutual and steadfast devotion to 
each other resembled that of ancient liegeman and lord. This hero- 
worship is, after all, not unique in our history. It should be a cause 
for great pride that so many of our leaders, of whom, of course, 
Lincoln is the most striking example, by embodying the noblest and 
the best in American life, have been the living ideal of countless 
immigrants. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 63 



A YOUNG MAN'S HERO: AN IMMIGRANT'S 
TRIBUTE TO ROOSEVELT 

There was never a day that called so loudly for such as he, 
as does this of ours. Not that it is worse than other days ; I 
know it is better. I find proof of it in the very fact that it 
is as if the age-long fight between good and evil had suddenly 
come to a head, as if all the questions of right, of justice, of 
the brotherhood, which we had seen in glimpses before, and 
dimly, had all at once come out in the open, craving solution 
one and all. A battle royal, truly ! A battle for the man of 
clean hands and clean mind, who can think straight and act 
square; the man who will stand for the right "because it is 
right" ; who can say, and mean it, that "it is hard to fail, but 
worse never to have tried to succeed." A battle for him who 
strives for "that highest form of success which comes, not 
to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to him who 
does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter 
toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate 
triumph." I am but quoting his own words, and never, I 
think, did I hear finer than those he spoke of Governor Taft 
when he had put by his own preferences and gone to his hard 
and toilsome task in the Philippines; for the whole royal, 
fighting soul of the man was in them. 

"But he undertook it gladly," he said, "and he is to be 
considered thrice fortunate; for in this world the one thing 
supremely worth having is the opportunity coupled with the 
capacity to do well and worthily a piece of work the doing of 
which is of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind." 

There is his measure. Let now the understrappers sput- 
ter. With that for our young men to grow up to, we need 
have no fear for the morrow. Let it ask what questions it 
will of the Republic, it shall answer them, for we shall have 
men at the oars. 

This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk con- 
tained a cable despatch which gave me a glow at the heart 



64 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

such as I have not felt for a while. Just three lines; but 
they told that a nation's conscience was struggling victoriously 
through hate and foul play and treason: Captain Dreyfus 
was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at last to a 
once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world 
upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it 
does not move! It does, where there are men to move it, — 
I said it before: men who believe in the right and are will- 
ing to fight for it. When the children of poverty and want 
came to Mulberry Street for justice, and I knew they came 
because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what the 
resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to 
see right done in his own time could accomplish. I have 
watched him since in the Navy Department, in camp, as Gov- 
ernor, in the White House, and more and more I have 
made out his message as being to the young men of our day, 
himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so, lor 
when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, 
and their handshake tells me that they want to be like him, 
and are going to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done 
something worth doing for my people. For, whether for 
good or for evil, we all leave our mark upon our day, and 
his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the right 
and wins. 

Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our 
broad land, are striving up toward the standard he sets, for 
he is their hero by right, as he is mine. Do not be afraid to 
own it. The struggle to which you are born, and in which 
you are bound to take a hand if you would be men in more 
than name, is the struggle between the ideal and the husk; 
for life without ideals is like the world without the hope of 
heaven, an empty, meaningless husk. It is your business to 
read its meaning into it by making the ideals real. The mate- 
rial things of life are good in their day, but they pass away; 
the moral remain to bear witness that the high hopes of 
youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt lives 
his ideals; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in 
working shape: "Face the facts as you find them; strive 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 65 

steadily for the best." "Be never content with less than the 
possible best, and never throw away the possible best because 
it is not the ideal best." Maxims, those, for the young man 
who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Hap- 
pily for the world, the young man who does not is rare. 



66 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



JACOB VAN DER ZEE 

"The Hollanders of Iowa," by Jacob Van der Zee, was published 
at Iowa City in 1912 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The 
following facts regarding the author and his book are given in the 
introduction of the editor, Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh: — 

"The author of this volume on 'The Hollanders of Iowa' was 
admirably fitted for the task. Born of Dutch parents in The 
Netherlands and reared among kinsfolk in Iow T a, he has been a part 
of the life which is portrayed in these pages. At the same time Mr. 
Van der Zee's education at The State University of Iowa, his three 
years' residence at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and his research 
work in The State Historical Society of Iowa have made it possible 
for him to study the Hollanders objectively as well as subjectively. 
Accordingly, his book is in no respect an overdrawn, eulogistic ac- 
count of the Dutch people. 

"The history of the Hollanders of Iowa is not wholly provincial: 
it suggests much that is typical in the development of Iowa and in 
the larger history of the West: it is 'a story of the stubborn and un- 
yielding fight of men and women who overcame the obstacles of a 
new country and handed down to their descendants thriving farms 
and homes of peace and plenty.' " 

The selection here given comprises chapter four of the book. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 67 

WHY DUTCH EMIGRANTS TURNED TO 
AMERICA 

Such was the condition of things in The Netherlands that 
thousands of people lived from hand to mouth, the prey of 
poverty and hunger, stupefied by the hopelessness of securing 
the necessities of life, and barely enabled through the gifts of 
the well-to-do to drag out their wretched lives. At the same 
time many of these unfortunate persons were hopeful and 
eager to find a place where they might obtain a livelihood, 
lead quiet lives of honesty and godliness, and educate their 
children in the principles of religion without let or hindrance. 
The leaders of the Separatists looked forward to a life of 
freedom in a land where man would not have to wait for 
work, but where work awaited man, where people would not 
rub elbows by reason of the density of population, and 
where God's creation would welcome the coming of man. 

When social forces such as these, mostly beyond human 
control, began to operate with increasing power, the Dutch 
people were not slow to recognize the truth that emigration 
was absolutely necessary. The seriousness of the situation 
dawned upon all thinking men, — especially upon state offi- 
cials, who feared that unless the stream of emigration could 
be directed toward the Dutch colonies, their country would 
suffer an enormous drain of capital and human lives. Accord- 
ingly the attention of prospective emigrants was called to the 
Dutch East Indies, — chiefly to the advantages of the rich 
island of Java, "that paradise of the world, the pearl in Hol- 
land's crown." 

The religion of the Dissenters, however, was responsible 
for turning the balance in favor of some other land. To 
them Java was a closed door. Beside the fear of an unhealth- 
ful climate towered the certainty of legislation hostile to their 
Christian principles and ideals. Moreover, could poor men 
afford the expense of transportation thither, and could they 
feel assured of getting land or work in Java? State officials, 
men of learning, and men of business from several parts of 



68 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

the country were summoned to an important conference 
at Amsterdam to discuss the whole emigration move- 
ment. The Separatist leaders were asked why they 
should not remain Netherlanders under the House of Orange 
by removing to the colonies just as the people of the British 
Isles found homes in the English colonies. Two Separatist 
ministers appealed to the government to direct the flood of 
emigration toward Java by promises of civil and religious 
liberty. But the attempt to secure a free Christian colony in 
Java produced only idle expectations. 

Then it was that the people turned their eyes away from 
the East toward the United States of North America, — a 
land of freedom and rich blessings, where they hoped to find 
in its unsettled interior some spot adaptable to agriculture, 
and thus rescue themselves from the miseries of a decadent 
state. To the discontented, ambitious Hollander was pre- 
sented the picture of a real land of promise, where all things 
would smile at him and be prepared, as it were, to aid him. 
It was said that "after an ocean passage of trifling expense 
the Netherlander may find work to do as soon as he sets foot 
on shore; he may buy land for a few florins per acre; and 
feel secure and free among a people of Dutch, German and 
English birth, who will rejoice to see him come to increase 
the nation's wealth." Asserting that they could vouch for 
the truthfulness of this picture, as based on the positive assur- 
ances and experiences of friends already in America, the Sep- 
aratist clergyman-pamphleteers openly declared that they 
would not hesitate to rob Holland of her best citizens by 
helping them on their way to America. 

Of the people and government of the United States, 
Scholte, who was destined to lead hundreds of his country- 
men to the State of Iowa, at an early date cherished a highly 
favorable opinion, which he expressed as follows : — 

"I am convinced that a settlement in some healthful region 
there will have, by the ordinary blessing of God, excellent 
temporal and moral results, especially for the rising genera- 
tion. . . . Should it then excite much wonder that I have 
firmly resolved to leave The Netherlands and together with 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 69 

so many Christian relatives adopt the United States as a new 
fatherland ? 

"There I shall certainly meet with the same wickedness 
which troubles me here; yet I shall find also opportunity to 
work. There I shall certainly find the same, if not still 
greater, evidence of unbelief and superstitution ; but I shall 
also find a constitutional provision which does not bind my 
hands in the use of the Sword of the Spirit, which is the 
Word of God; there I can fight for what I believe without 
being disobedient to the magistrates and authorities ordained 
by God. There I shall find among men the same zeal to ob- 
tain this world's goods ; but 1 shall not find the same impulse 
to get the better of one another, for competition is open to 
all; I shall not find the same desire to reduce the wages of 
labor, nor the same inducement to avoid taxation, nor the 
same peevishness and groaning about the burden of taxation. 

"There I shall find no Minister of Public Worship, for the 
separation of Church and State is a fact. There I shall not 
need to contribute to the support of pastors whose teachings I 
abhor. I shall find no school commissions nor school super- 
visors who prohibit the use of the Bible in schools and hinder 
the organization of special schools, for education is really 
free. I shall find there the descendants of earlier inhabitants 
of Holland, among whom the piety of our forefathers still 
lives, and who are now prepared to give advice and aid to 
Hollanders who are forced to come to them." 

Scholte, however, never claimed to be a refugee from the 
oppression of the Old World. He left Europe because the 
social, religious, and political condition of his native country 
was such that, according to his conviction, he could not with 
any reasonable hope of success work for the actual benefit of 
honest and industrious fellow-men. Very many members of 
Scholte's emigrant association felt certain that they and their 
children would sink from the middle class and end their lives 
as paupers, if they remained in Holland. 

Later emigration to America was in no small degree due to 
a cause which has always operated in inducing people t© 
abandon their European homes. After a period of residence 



70 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

in America, Hollanders, elated by reason of their prosperity 
and general change of fortune, very naturally reported their 
delight to friends and relatives in the fatherland, strongly 
urging them to come and share their good luck instead of 
suffering from want in Holland. They wrote of higher 
wages, fertile soil, cheapness of the necessities of life, abund- 
ance of cheap land, and many other advantages. If one's 
wages for a day's work in America equalled a week's earn- 
ings in Holland, surely it was worth while to leave that un- 
fortunate country. Such favorable reports as these were 
largely instrumental in turning the attention of Hollanders 
to the New World as the one great land of opportunity. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 7 1 



EDWARD BOK 

Although it was impossible to include in this volume selections 
from "The Americanization of Edward Bok," recently published, it 
seems that some mention should be made of this delightfully remin- 
iscent autobiography and of its author, who came to this country in 
1870 as a little Dutch boy of six years. 

There are entertaining chapters on his passion for collecting 
autographs from famous people, on his visit to Boston and Cam- 
bridge to see Holmes and Longfellow and Emerson, on his relations 
with prominent statesmen and other notable men of his time, and on 
his experiences as editor of an influential and successful magazine; 
but most pertinent to the purpose of this work are the last two chap- 
ters of the book, "Where America Fell Short with Me," and "What 
I Owe to America," which should be read by all those actively in- 
terested in the Americanization of the foreign-born. In the first of 
these he points out that America failed to teach him thrift or econ- 
omy; that the importance of doing a task thoroughly, the need of 
quality rather than quantity, was not inculcated ; that the public 
school fell short in its responsibility of seeing that he, a foreign- 
born boy, acquired the English language correctly; that he was not 
impressed with a wholesome and proper respect for law and author- 
ity; and that, at the most critical time, when he came to exercise 
the right of suffrage, the State offered him no enlightenment or en- 
couragement. Yet, in spite of all this, he is able to say: "Whatever 
shortcomings I may have found during my fifty-year period of 
Americanization; however America may have failed to help my 
transition from a foreigner into an American, I owe to her the most 
priceless gift that any nation can offer, and that is opportunity." 



72 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



OSCAR SOLOMON STRAUS 

Oscar S. Straus, formerly United States Ambassador to Turkey, 
was born in Bavaria. Besides the degree A.B. from Columbia Uni- 
versity, he has received honorary degrees from various institutions. 
He was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration 
at The Hague, 1902, and Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the 
cabinet of President Roosevelt, and has held many other prominent 
positions in civil and political affairs. 

His chief writings are: "The Origin of Republican Form of Gov- 
ernment in the United States," 1886; "Roger Williams, the Pioneer 
©f Religious Liberty," 1894; "The American Spirit," a collection of 
various addresses, published in one volume by the Century Company 
in 1893. The address selected for quotation here is that delivered 
at the banquet of the American Hebrew Congregations, in New 
York, January 18, 191 1. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 73 

AMERICA AND THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN 
JUDAISM 

The spirit of American Judaism first asserted itself when 
Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Amsterdam, would not 
permit the few Jews who had emigrated from Portugal to 
unite with the other burghers in standing guard for the pro- 
tection of their homes. When the tax-collector came to 
Asser Levy to demand a tax on this account, he asked 
whether that tax was imposed on all the residents of New 
Amsterdam. "No," was the reply, "it is only imposed upon 
the Jews, because they do not stand guard!" "I have not 
asked to be exempted," replied Asser Levy. "I am not only 
willing, but I demand the right to stand guard." That right 
the Jews have asserted and exercised as officers in the ranks 
of the Continental Army and in every crisis of our national 
history from that time until the present day. 

The American spirit and the spirit of American Judaism 
were nurtured in the same cradle of Liberty, and were 
united in origin, in ideals, and in historical development. The 
closing chapter of the chronicles of the Jews on the Iberian 
peninsula forms the opening chapter of their history on this 
Continent. It was Luis Santangel, "the Beaconsfield of his 
time," assisted by his kinsman Gabriel Sanches, the Royal 
Treasurer of Aragon, who advanced out of his own purse 
seventeen thousand florins which made the voyages of Colum- 
bus possible. Luis de Torres, the interpreter as well as the 
surgeon and the physician of the little fleet, and several of the 
sailors who were with Columbus on his first voyage, as show n 
by the record, were Jews. 

Looking back through this vista of more than four cen- 
turies, we have reason to remember with justified gratitude 
the foresight and signal services of those Spanish Jews who 
had the wisdom to divine the far-reaching possibilities of the 
plans of the great navigator, whom the King and the Queen, 
the Dukes and the Grandees united in regarding as merely 
"a visionary babbler" or, worse than this, as "a scheming 



74 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

adventurer." The royal patrons were finally won over by 
the hope that Columbus might discover new treasures of 
gold and precious stones to enrich the Spanish crown. But 
not so with the Jewish patrons, who caused Columbus, or, 
as he was then called, Christopher Colon, to be recalled, and 
who, without security and without interest, advanced the 
money to fit out his caravels, since they saw, as by divine in- 
spiration, the promise and possibility of the discovery of an- 
other world, which, in the words of the late Emilio Castelar 
— the historian, statesman, nnd one time President of Spain 
— "would afford to the quickening principles of human lib- 
erty a temple reared to the God of enfranchised and re- 
deemed conscience, a land that would offer an unstained 
abode to the ideals of progress." Fortunately, the records 
of these transactions are still preserved in the archives of 
Simancas in Seville. 

It is idle to speculate upon hypothetical theories in the 
face of the facts of history. Of course, America would have 
been discovered and colonized had Columbus never lived; 
but had the streams of the beginnings of American history 
flown from other sources in other directions, it would be futile 
even to make an imaginative forecast of the effect they would 
have produced upon the history and development of this 
Continent. The merciless intolerance of an ecclesiastical 
system and the horror of its persecutions stimulated the 
earliest immigration, and subsequently brought about the 
Reformation in Saxon and Anglo-Saxon lands, and the same 
spirit drove to our shores the Pilgrim and the Puritan fath- 
ers ; which chain of circumstances destined this country from 
the very beginning to be the land of the immigrant and a 
home for the fugitive and the persecuted. 

The difference between government by kings and nobles 
and government under a Democracy is, that the former 
rests upon the power to compel obedience, while the latter 
rests essentially upon the sacrifice by the individual for the 
community, based upon the ideals of right and justice. If 
the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Huguenots brought with 
them, as they certainly did, the remembrance of sufferings for 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 75 

ideals and the spirit of sacrifice, how much longer was that 
remembrance, and with how much greater intensity did that 
spirit glow in the souls of the Jews, whose whole history is 
a record of martyrdom, of suffering, and of sacrifice for the 
ideals of civil and religious liberty; concerning whom it has 
been said: "Of all the races and nations of mankind which 
quarter the arms of Liberty on the shields of their honor, 
none has a better title to that decoration than the Jews." 

The spirit of Judaism became the mother spirit of Puritan- 
ism in Old England ; and the history of Israel and its demo- 
cratic model under the Judges inspired and guided the Pil- 
grims and the Puritans in their wandering hither and in lay- 
ing the foundation of their commonwealths in New Eng- 
land. The piety and learning of the Jews bridged the chasm 
of the Middle Ages; and the torch they bore amidst trials 
and sufferings lighted the pathway from the ancient to the 
modern world. 

"The historical power of the prophets of Israel," says 
James Darmesteter, "is exhausted neither by Judaism nor by 
Christianity, and they hold a reserve force for the benefit of 
the coming century. The twentieth century is better pre- 
pared than the nineteen preceding it to understand them." 
While Zionism is a pious hope and a vision out of despair in 
countries where the victims of oppression are still counted by 
millions, the republicanism of the United States is the nearest 
approach to the ideals of the prophets of Israel that ever has 
been incorporated in the form of a state. The founders of 
our government converted the dreams of philosophers into a 
political system, — a government by the people, for the people, 
whereunder the rights of man became the rights of men, se- 
cured and guaranteed by a written constitution. Ours is pe- 
culiarly a promised land wherein the spirit of the teachings 
of the ancient prophets inspired the work of the fathers of 
our country. 

American liberty demands of no man the abandonment of 
his conscientious convictions ; on the contrary, it had its birth, 
not in the narrowness of uniformity, but in the breadth of 
diversity, which patriotism fuses together into a conscious 



76 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

harmony for the highest welfare of all. The Protestant, the 
Catholic, and the Jew, each and all need the support and the 
sustaining power of their religion to develop their moral na- 
tures and to keep alive the spirit of self-sacrifice which Amer- 
ican patriotism demands of every man, whatever may be his 
creed or race, who is worthy to enjoy the blessings of Ameri- 
can citizenship. 

I do not wish to be misunderstood as claiming any special 
merit for the Jews as American citizens which is not equally 
possessed by the Americans of other creeds. They have the 
good as well as the bad among them, the noble and the 
ignoble, the worthy and the unworthy. They have the qual- 
ities as well as the defects of their fellow-citizens. In a 
word, they are not any less patriotic Americans because they 
are Jews, nor any less loyal Jews because they are primarily 
patriotic Americans. 

The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this coun- 
try or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and 
ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the 
American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the 
caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New 
Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers 
stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 77 



FELIX ADLER 

Felix Adler, lecturer and writer on moral and ethical subjects, 
was born in Alzey, Germany, in 1851. He received the degree A.B. 
from Columbia University, and continued his studies at Berlin and 
at the University of Heidelberg. From 1874 to 1876 he was pro- 
fessor of Hebrew at Cornell University. Since 1902 he has been 
professor of political and social ethics at Columbia. He has produced 
numerous works on moral and ethical topics. In 1915 there was 
published his book, "The World Crisis and its Meaning," the third 
chapter of which is here quoted in part. 

Adler's keen interest in international ethics has been expressed in 
several addresses delivered before the New York Society of Ethical 
Culture, which was founded by him in 1876. Among other things 
he pleads for altruism among the nations, and truthfulness, and be- 
lieves in a purified nationalism instead of anti- or inter-nationalism. 



78 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



THE AMERICAN IDEAL 

The American ideal is that of the uncommon quality latent 
in the common man. Necessarily it is an ethical ideal, a 
spiritual ideal; otherwise it would be nonsense. For, taking 
men as they are, they are assuredly not equal. The differ- 
ences between them, on the contrary, are glaring. The com- 
mon man is not uncommonly fine spiritually, but rather, seen 
from the outside, "uncommonly" common. It is therefore 
an ethical instinct that has turned the people toward this 
ethical conception. 

It is true that in Germany and in England, side by side 
with the efficiency and the mastery ideals, there has always 
existed this same spiritual or religious ideal ; side by side with 
the stratification and entitulation of men, the labelling of 
them as lower and higher, as empirically better or worse, 
there has always been the recognition that men are equal, — 
equal, that is to say, in church, but not outside, equal in the 
hereafter, but not in this life. If we would fathom the real 
depth and inner significance of the democratic ideal as it 
slumbers or dreams in the heart of America, rather than as 
yet explicit, we must say that it is an ideal which seeks to 
overcome this very dualism, seeks to take the spiritual con- 
ception of human equality out of the church and put it into 
the market place, to take it from far off celestial realms for 
realization upon this earth. For men are not equal in the 
empirical sense; they are equal only in the spiritual sense, 
equal only in the sense that the margin of achievement of 
which any person is capable, be it wide or narrow, is infini- 
tesimal compared with his infinite spiritual possibilities. 

It is because of this subconscious ethical motive that there 
is this generous air of expectation in America, that we are 
always wondering what will happen next, or who will hap- 
pen next. Will another Emerson come along? Will an- 
other Lincoln come along? We do not know. But this we 
know, that the greatest lusters of our past already tend to 
fade in our memory, not because we are irreverent, but be- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 79 

cause nothing that the past has accomplished can content us; 
because we are looking for greatness beyond greatness, truth 
beyond truth ever yet spoken. The Germans have a legend 
that in their hour of need an ancient emperor will arise out 
of the tomb where he slumbers to stretch his protecting hand 
over the Fatherland. We Americans, too, have the belief 
that, if ever such an hour comes for us, there will arise spirits 
clothed in human flesh amongst us sufficient for our need, but 
spirits that will come, as it were, out of the future to meet 
our advancing host and lead it, not ghosts out of the storied 
past. For America differs from all other nations in that it 
derives its inspiration from the future. Every other people 
has some culture, some civilization, handed down from the 
past, of which it is the custodian, and which it seeks to de- 
velop. The American people have no such single tradition. 
They are dedicated, not to the preservation of what has been, 
but to the creation of what never has been. They are the 
prophets of the future, not the priests of the past. 

I have spoken above of ideals, of what is fine in a nation, 
of fine tendencies. The idea which a people has of itself, 
like the idea which an individual has of himself, often does 
not tally with the reality. If we look at the realities of 
American life, — and, on the principle of corruptio optimi 
pessima, we should be prepared for what we see, — we are 
dismayed to observe in actual practice what seems like a mon- 
strous caricature, — not democracy, but plutocracy; kings ex- 
pelled and the petty political bosses in their stead; merciless 
exploitation of the economically weak, — a precipitate reduc- 
tion of wages, for instance, at the first signs of approaching 
depression, in advance of what is required, — instead of re- 
spect for the sacred personality of human beings, the utmost 
disrespect. Certainly the nation needs strong and persistent 
ethical teaching in order to make it aware of its better self 
and of what is implied in the political institutions which it 
has founded. 

But ethical teaching alone will not suffice. It must be ad- 
mitted that a danger lurks in the idea of equality itself. The 
danger is that differences in refinement, in culture, in intel- 



80 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

lectual ability and attainments are apt to be insufficiently 
emphasized; that the untutored, the uncultivated, the intel- 
lectually undeveloped, are apt presumptuously to put them- 
selves on a par with those of superior development ; and hence 
that superiority, failing to meet with recognition, will be 
discouraged and democracy tend to level men downward in- 
stead of upward. This will not be true so much of such moral 
excellence as appears in an Emerson or a Lincoln, — for there 
is that in the lowliest which responds to the manifestations 
of transcendent moral beauty, — but it will hold good of those 
minor superiorities that fall short of the highest in art and 
science and conduct, yet upon the fostering of which depends 
the eventual appearance of culture's richest fruits. 

In order to ward off this danger we must have a new and 
larger educational policy in our schools than has yet been put 
in practice. Vocational training in its broadest and deepest 
sense will be our greatest aid. 

Democracy, the American democracy, is the St. Christo- 
pher. St. Christopher bore the Christ child on his shoulders 
as he stepped into the river, and the child was as light as a 
feather. But it became heavier and heavier as he entered 
the stream, until he was well nigh borne down by it. So we, 
in the heyday of 1776, stepped into the stream with the in- 
fant Democracy on our shoulders, and it was light as a 
feather's weight; but it is becoming heavier and heavier the 
deeper we are getting into the stream — heavier and heavier. 
When we began, there were four or five millions. Now 
there are ninety millions. Heavier and heavier! And there 
are other millions coming. When we began we were a 
homogeneous people; now there are those twenty-three lan- 
guages spoken in a single school. And with this vast multi- 
tude, and this heterogeneous population, we are trying the 
most difficult experiment that has ever been attempted in the 
world, — trying to invest with sovereignty the common man. 
There has been the sovereignty of kings, and now and then 
a king has done well. There has been the sovereignty of 
aristocracies, and now and then an English aristocracy or a 
Venetian aristocracy has done well — though never wholly 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 8l 

well. And now we are imposing this most difficult task of 
government, which depends on the recognition of excellence 
in others, so that the best may rule in our behalf, on the 
shoulders of the multitude. These are our difficulties. But 
©ur difficulties are also our opportunities. This land is the 
Promised Land. It is that not only in the sense in which the 
word is commonly taken — that is to say, a haven for the dis- 
advantaged of other countries, a land whither the oppressed 
may come to repair their fortunes and breathe freely and 
achieve material independence. That is but one side of the 
promise. In that sense the Anglo-American native popula- 
tion is the host, extending hospitality, the benefactor of the 
immigrants. But this is also the land of promise for the na- 
tive population themselves, in order that they may be pene- 
trated by the influence of what is best in the newcomers, in 
order that their too narrow horizon may be widened, in order 
that their stiffened mental bent may become more flexible; 
that festivity, pageant and song may be added to their life by 
the newcomers; that echoes of ancient prophecy may inspire 
the matter-of-fact, progressive movements, so-called, of our 
day. 

America is the Wonderland, hid for ages in the secret of 
the sea, then revealed. At first, how abused! Spanish con- 
querors trampled it; it was the nesting place of buccaneers, 
adventurers, if also the home of the Puritans — bad men and 
good men side by side. Then for dreary centuries the home 
of slavery. Then the scene of prolonged strife. And now, 
on the surface, the stamping ground of vulgar plutocrats! 
And yet, in the hearts of the elect, — yes, and in the hearts of 
the masses, too, — inarticulate and dim, there has ever been 
present a fairer and nobler ideal, the ideal of a Republic 
built on the uncommon fineness in the common man! To 
live for that ideal is the true Americanism, the larger pa- 
triotism. To that ideal, not on the field of battle, as in 
Europe, but in the arduous toil of peace, let us be willing to 
give the "last full measure of devotion." 



82 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



MARY ANTIN 

With the publication in 19 12 of Mary Antin's "The Promised 
Land," a new interest was awakened in the experiences of the for- 
eign-born, and since then several important autobiographies of im- 
migrants have appeared. 

Miss Antin, who was born in Polotzk, Russia, in 1881, and came 
to America in 1894, was educated in the public schools of Boston, 
later attending Teachers' College and Barnard College, Columbia 
University. Many an American boy and girl is familiar with her 
fine tribute to the part of the public school in her Americanization. 

In 1914 she published "They Who Knock at Our Gates," "a 
complete gospel of immigration," in which she aims to refute the 
material and selfish arguments of the restrictionists, basing her plea 
for a nobler and more liberal treatment of the immigration question 
upon the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence. 
It is from this volume and "The Promised Land" that the following 
selections are taken. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 83 



AN IMMIGRANT'S TRIBUTE TO THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOL AND TO GEORGE WASHINGTON 

The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and 
for the country, when it has made us into good Americans. 
I am glad it is mine to tell how the miracle was wrought in 
one case. You should be glad to hear of it, you born Amer- 
icans; for it is the story of the growth of your country; of 
the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the far ends of 
the earth to the flag you love ; of the recruiting of your armies 
of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to 
hear of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of 
your own experience, the thrill and wonder of which your 
own hearts have felt. 

How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an 
American ? By the middle of my second year in school I had 
reached the sixth grade. When, after the Christmas holi- 
days, we began to study the life of Washington, running 
through a summary of the Revolution, and the early days of 
the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study 
had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the 
song book, that had so fascinated me until now, became sud- 
denly sober exercise books, tools wherewith to hew a way to 
the source of inspiration. When the teacher read to us out 
of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I sat rigid with at- 
tention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped on the 
edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent 
sighs of disappointment escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the 
parts between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came 
my turn, my voice shook and the book trembled in my hands. 
I could not pronounce the name of George Washington 
without a pause. Never had I prayed, never had I chanted 
the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most Holy, 
in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple 
sentences of my child's story of the patriot. I gazed with 
adoration at the portraits of George and Martha Washing- 



84 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

ton, till I could see them with my eyes shut. And whereas 
formerly my self-consciousness had bordered on conceit, and 
I thought myself an uncommon person, parading my school- 
books through the streets, and swelling with pride when a 
teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all 
at once, seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great. 

As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to 
save himself from punishment, I was for the first time truly 
repentant of my sins. Formerly I had fasted and prayed and 
made sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, but it was more than 
half play, in mimicry of my elders. I had no real horror of 
sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping punishment. I am 
sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in Polotzk — all 
my world, in fact — strove together, by example and precept, 
to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in 
about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, 
but I could not help seeing that most of them were a little 
bit stupid, and that mischief was much more fun than piety. 
Goodness, as I had known it, was respectable, but not neces- 
sarily admirable. The people I really admired, like my Uncle 
Solomon and Cousin Rachel, were those who preached the 
least and laughed the most. My sister Frieda was perfectly 
good, but she did not think the less of me because I played 
tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One 
could be downright good if one really wanted to. One 
could be learned if one had books and teachers. One could 
sing funny songs and tell anecdotes if one traveled about and 
picked up such things, like one's uncles and cousins. But a 
human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and unfailingly 
valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or dreamed 
of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable 
as he was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a 
lie, I could not compare myself to George Washington ; for I 
was not brave, — I was afraid to go out when snowballs 
whizzed, — and I could never be the First President of the 
United States. 

So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But 
the twin of my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 85 

seem, was a sense of dignity I had never known before. For 
if I found that I was a person of small consequence, I dis- 
covered at the same time that I was more nobly related than 
I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends who were 
notable people by the old standards, — and I had never been 
ashamed of my family, — but this George Washington, who 
died long before I was born, was like a king in greatness, 
and he and I were Fellow-Citizens. There was a great deal 
about Fellow-Citizens in the patriotic literature we read at 
this time ; and I knew from my father how he was a Citizen 
through the process of naturalization, and how I also was a 
Citizen by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was 
a Fellow-Citizen, and George Washington was another. It 
thrilled me to realize what sudden greatness had fallen on 
me, and at the same time sobered me, as with a sense of re- 
sponsibility. I strove to conduct myself as befitted a Fellow- 
Citizen. 

Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing 
and daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon 
them as a glutton pounces on his meat after a period of en- 
forced starvation. I lived with my nose in a book, and took 
no notice of the alterations of the sun and stars. But now, 
after the advent of George Washington and the American 
Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the Com- 
mon after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung 
on fence rails, my pet book forgotten under my arm, and 
gazed off to the yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, 
and beyond. I was no longer the central figure of my 
dreams ; the dry weeds in the lane crackled beneath the tread 
of Heroes. 

What more could America give a child ? Ah, much more ! 
As I read how the patriots planned the Revolution, and the 
women gave their sons to die in battle, and the heroes led to 
victory, and the rejoicing people set up the Republic, it 
dawned on me gradually what was meant by my country. 
The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them 
together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each 
other, — all this it was that made my country. It was not a 



86 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

thing that I understood; I could not go home and tell Frieda 
about it, as I told her other things I learned at school. But I 
knew one could say "my country" and feel it, as one felt 
"God" or "myself." My teacher, my schoolmates, Miss 
Dillingham, George Washington himself, could not mean 
more than I when they said "my country," after I had once 
felt it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and / was 
a citizen. And when we stood up to sing "America," I 
shouted the words with all my might. I was in very earnest 
proclaiming to the world my love for my new-found country. 

"I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills." 

Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square, — all was 
hallowed ground to me. As the day approached when the 
school was to hold exercises in honor of Washington's Birth- 
day, the halls resounded at all hours with the strains of patri- 
otic songs; and I, who was a model of the attentive pupil, 
more than once lost my place in the lesson as I strained to 
hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class rehearsing 
"The Star-Spangled Banner." If the doors . happened to 
open, and the chorus broke out unveiled, — 

"O ! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?" 

delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint 
with suppressed enthusiasm. 

Where had been my country until now? What flag had 
I loved? What heroes had I worshipped? The very names 
of these things had been unknown to me. Well I knew that 
Polotzk was not my country. It was goluth — exile. On 
many occasions in the year we prayed to God to lead us out 
of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the 
words, "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem." On childish 
lips, indeed, those words were no conscious aspiration; we 
repeated the Hebrew syllables after our elders, but without 
their hope and longing. Still not a child among us was too 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 87 

young to feel in his own flesh the lash of the oppressor. We 
knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the spiteful 
treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin 
who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had 
good reason to pray for deliverance. But the story of the 
Exodus was not history to me in the sense that the story of 
the American Revolution was. It was more like a glorious 
myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting me off from 
the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms. 
Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of 
the Biblical past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the 
children of princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant 
sense of disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our 
life. In very truth we were a people without a country. 
Surrounded by mocking foes and detractors, it was difficult 
for me to realize the persons of my people's heroes or the 
events in which they moved. Except in moments of ab- 
straction from the world around me, I scarcely understood 
that Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once 
the Kings of the Bible, real people, like my neighbors in 
Polotzk, ruled in puissant majesty. For the conditions of 
our civil life did not permit us to cultivate a spirit of na- 
tionalism. The freedom of worship that was grudgingly 
granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means 
included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew 
State, any hero other than the Czar. What we children 
picked up of our ancient political history was confused with 
the miraculous story of the Creation, with the supernatural 
legends and hazy associations of Bible lore. As to our future, 
we Jews in Polotzk had no national expectations; only a 
life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in Palestine. 
If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of 
our audience, "Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is it lost," 
we did not really picture to ourselves Judaea restored. 

So it came to pass that we did not know what my country 
could mean to a man. And as we had no country, so we 
had no flag to love. It was by no far-fetched symbolism 
that the banner of the House of Romanoff became the emblem 



88 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child would 
know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of 
severe penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of 
the advent of one of our oppressors. And as it was with 
country and flag, so it was with heroes of war. We hated the 
uniform of the soldier, to the last brass button. On the person 
of a Gentile, it was the symbol of tyranny ; on the person of a 
Jew, it was the emblem of shame. 

So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hun- 
gry-minded and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreach- 
ing youth, she was set down in a land of outspoken patriot- 
ism, she was likely to love her new country with a great 
iove, and to embrace its heroes in a great worship. Naturaliza- 
tion, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the adop- 
tion of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adop- 
tion of America by the immigrant. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 89 



THE LAW OF THE FATHERS: A VIEW OF 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

If I ask an American what is the fundamental American 
law, and he does not answer me promptly, "That which is 
contained in the Declaration of Independence," I put him 
down for a poor citizen. He who is ignorant of the law is 
likely to disobey it. And there cannot be two minds about 
the position of the Declaration among our documents of 
State. What the Mosaic Law is to the Jews, the Declara- 
tion is to the American people. It affords us a starting- 
point in history and defines our mission among the nations. 
Without it, we should not differ greatly from other nations 
who achieved a constitutional form of government and vari- 
ous democratic institutions. What marks us out from other 
advanced nations is the origin of our liberties in one supreme 
act of political innovation, prompted by a conscious sense of 
the dignity of manhood. In other countries advances have 
been made by favor of hereditary rulers and aristocratic par- 
liaments, each successive reform being grudgingly handed 
down to the people from above. Not so in America. At 
one bold stroke we shattered the monarchical tradition, and 
installed the people in the seats of government, substituting 
the gospel of the sovereignty of the masses for the supersti- 
tion of the divine right of kings. 

And even more notable than the boldness of the act was 
the dignity with which it was entered upon. In terms befit- 
ting a philosophical discourse, we gave notice to the world 
that what we were about to do, we would do in the name of 
humanity, in the conviction that as justice is the end of gov- 
ernment, so should manhood be its source. 

It is this insistence on the philosophic sanction of our re- 
volt that gives the sublime touch to our political perform- 
ance. Up to the moment of our declaration of independence, 
our struggle with our English rulers did not differ from 
other popular struggles against despotic governments. Again 



90 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

and again we respectfully petitioned for redress of specific 
grievances, as the governed, from time immemorial, have 
petitioned their governors. But one day we abandoned our 
suit for petty damages, and instituted a suit for the recovery 
of our entire human heritage of freedom; and by basing our 
claim on the fundamental principles of the brotherhood of 
man and the sovereignty of the masses, we assumed the 
championship of the oppressed against their oppressors, wher- 
ever found. 

It was thus, by sinking our particular quarrel with George 
of England in the universal quarrel of humanity with injus- 
tice, that we emerged a distinct nation, with a unique mission 
in the world. And we revealed ourselves to the world in 
the Declaration of Independence, even as the Israelites re- 
vealed themselves in the Law of Moses. From the 
Declaration flows our race consciousness, our sense of what 
is and what is not American. Our laws, our policies, the 
successive steps of our progress, — all must conform to the 
spirit of the Declaration of Independence, the source of our 
national being. 

The American confession of faith, therefore, is a recital of 
the doctrines of liberty and equality. A faithful American 
is one who understands these doctrines and applies them in 
his life. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 9 1 



ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY 

An intense seriousness is one of the prominent characteristics of 
the writings of the immigrant; for immigration is a serious and 
often a hazardous undertaking, as the immigrant best knows. But 
that he has not failed to appreciate the amusing side of the read- 
justment period is evidenced by the many touches of humor in his 
accounts of his relation to his new environment. One of the most 
pleasing and inspiriting of these accounts is "A Far Journey," by 
Abraham M. Rihbany, who was born in Syria in the year 1869, and 
who came to the United States with little money, but with much 
native intelligence and an open and receptive mind and soul, eager 
for the very best that America has to give. 

The bad effects of the gregariousness of the foreigner in America 
have frequently been pointed out and deplored ; most writers on 
immigration have failed to see or mention any of its benefits. It is 
interesting to know the opinion on this vexing question of one who 
has himself passed safely through a critical transition period. Speak- 
ing of his own experience he says that the Syrian colony in New 
York "was a habitat so much like the one I had left behind me in 
Syria that its home atmosphere enabled me to maintain a firm hold 
on life in the face of the many difficulties which confronted me in 
those days, and just different enough to awaken my curiosity to 
know more about the surrounding American influences." Impelled 
by the question, "Where is America?" and longing for "something 
more in the life of America than the mere loaves and fishes," he 
determined to leave New York and "seek the smaller centers of popu- 
lation, where men came in friendly touch with one another, daily." 



92 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



AMERICA OFFERS SOMETHING BETTER 
THAN MONEY 

I was told while in Syria that in America money could be 
picked up everywhere. That was not true. But I found 
that infinitely better things than money — knowledge, free- 
dom, self-reliance, order, cleanliness, sovereign human 
rights, self-government, and all that these great accomplish- 
ments imply — can be picked up everywhere in America by 
whosoever earnestly seeks them. And those among Ameri- 
cans who are exerting the largest influence toward the solu- 
tion of the "immigration problem" are, in my opinion, not 
those who are writing books on "good citizenship, " but those 
who stand before the foreigner as the embodiment of these 
great ideals. 

The occasions on which I was made to feel that I was a 
foreigner — an alien — were so rare that they are not worth 
mentioning. My purpose in life, and the large, warm heart 
of America which opens to every person who aspires to be a 
good and useful citizen, made me forget that there was an 
"immigration problem" within the borders of this great 
Commonwealth. When I think of the thousand noble im- 
pulses which were poured into my soul in my early years in 
this country by good men and women in all walks of life; 
when I think of the many homes in which I was received 
with my uncomely appearance and with my crude manners, 
where women who were visions of elegance served me as an 
honored guest, of the many counsels of men of affairs which 
fed my strength and taught me the lasting value of personal 
achievements, and that America is the land of not only great 
privileges, but great responsibilities, I feel like saying (and 
I do say whenever I have the opportunity) to every for- 
eigner, "When you really know what America is, when you 
are willing to share in its sorrows, as well as its joys, then 
you will cease to be a whining malcontent, will take your 
harp down from the willows, and will not call such a coun- 
try 'a strange land.' " 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 93 

Of all the means of improvement other than personal asso- 
ciations with good men and women, the churches and the 
public schools gripped most strongly at the strings of my 
heart. Upon coming into town, the sight of the church 
spires rising above the houses and the trees as witnesses to man's 
desire for God, always gave me inward delight. True, relig- 
ion in America lacks to a certain extent the depth of Oriental 
mysticism; yet it is much more closely related than in the 
Orient to the vital issues of "tjae life which now is." Often 
would I go and stand on the opposite side of the street from a 
public-school building at the hour of dismissal (and this pas- 
sion still remains with me) just for the purpose of feasting 
my eyes on seeing the pupils pour out in squads, so clean and 
so orderly, and seemingly animated by all that is noblest in 
the life of this great nation. My soul would revel in the 
thought that no distinctions were made in those temples of 
learning between Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, 
the churched and the unchurched; all enjoyed the equality 
of privileges, shared equally in the intellectual and moral 
feast, and drank freely the spirit of the noblest patriotism. 



94 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



AN IMMIGRANT TELLS HIS STRUGGLES 
WITH THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 

My struggles with the English language (which have not 
yet ceased) were at times very hard. It is not at all difficult 
for me to realize the agonizing inward struggles of a person 
who has lost the power of speech. When I was first com- 
pelled to set aside my mother-tongue and use English ex- 
clusively as my medium of expression, the sphere of my life 
seemed to shrink to a very small disk. My pretentious pur- 
pose of suddenly becoming a lecturer on Oriental customs, 
in a language in which practically I had never conversed, 
might have seemed to any one who knew me like an act of 
faith in the miraculous gift of tongues. My youthful desire 
was not only to inform but to move my hearers. Conse- 
quently, my groping before an audience for suitable diction 
within the narrow limits of my uncertain vocabulary was 
often pitiable. 

The exceptions in English grammar seemed to be more 
than the rules. The difference between the conventional 
and the actual sounds of such words as 'Victuals" and 
"colonel" seemed to me to be perfectly scandalous. The let- 
ter c is certainly a superfluity in the English language; it is 
never anything else but either k or s. In irry native language, 
the Arabic, the accent is always put as near the end of the 
word as possible; in the English, as near the beginning as 
possible. Therefore, in using my adopted tongue, I was 
tossed between the two extremes and very often ' 'split the 
difference" by taking a middle course. The sounds of the 
letters, v, p, and the hard g, are not represented in the 
Arabic. They are symbolized in transliteration by the equiv- 
alents of f, b, and k. On numerous occasions, therefore, and 
especially when I waxed eloquent, my tongue would mix 
these sounds hopelessly, to the amused surprise of my hear- 
ers. I would say "coal" when I meant "goal," "pig man" 
for "big man," "buy" for "pie," "ferry" for "very," and vice 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 95 

versa. For some time I had, of course, to think in Arabic 
and try to translate my thoughts literally into English, which 
practice caused me many troubles, especially in the use of the 
connectives. On one occasion, when an American gentle- 
man told me that he was a Presbyterian, and I, rejoicing to 
claim fellowship with him, sought to say what should have 
been, "We are brethren in Christ," I said, "We are brothers, 
by Jesus." My Presbyterian friend put his finger on his lip 
in pious fashion, and, with elevated brows and a most sym- 
pathetic smile, said, "That is swearing!" 

But in my early struggles with English, I derived much 
negative consolation from the mistakes Americans made in 
pronouncing my name. None of them could pronounce it 
correctly — Rih-ba-ny — without my assistance. I have been 
called Rib-beny, Richbany, Ribary, Laborny, Rabonie, and 
many other names. An enterprising Sunday School superin- 
tendent in the Presbyterian Church at Mansfield, Ohio, in- 
troduced me to his school by saying, "Now we have the 
pleasure of listening to Mr. Rehoboam!" The prefixing of 
"Mr." to the name of the scion of King Solomon seemed to 
me to annihilate time and space, and showed me plainly how 
the past might be brought forward and made to serve the 
present. 



96 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



EDWARD ALFRED STEINER 

None of our immigrant authors has written with more earnestness 
of America and things American than Edward A. Steiner, who 
was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1866. Unlike the average immi- 
grant, before coming to the United States he had received consid- 
erable education in the public schools of his native city, in the gym- 
nasium at Pilsen, Bohemia, and at the University of Heidelberg. 
After passing through most of the hardships incident to the life of 
an alien, he was graduated from the Oberlin Theological Seminary 
and was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church. Several 
years were then spent in pastoral work, and in 1903 he was elected 
to the Chair of Applied Christianity at Grinnell College, Iowa. He 
is widely known both as a lecturer and an author, and among his 
numerous books may be mentioned "On the Trail of the Immigrant," 
1906; "Against the Current," 1910; "From Alien to Citizen," 1914; 
"Introducing the American Spirit," 1915; "Nationalizing America," 
1916; "Confession of a Hyphenated American," 1916. This 
last voices the sensitiveness so commonly felt by Americans of 
foreign and particularly German birth in the face of much unreas- 
onable suspicion and prejudice prior to and at the entrance of the 
United States into the European War. "Nationalizing America" is 
perhaps his most searching book; for in this almost every Ameri- 
can institution is scrutinized, the State, the Church, the school, and 
the industrial life being examined in their relation to the immi- 
grant. 

Selections from two chapters of this book ("The Stomach Line" 
and "History and the Nation") have been combined under one title, 
"Industrialism and the Immigrant." "The Criminal Immigrant" is 
taken from chapter fourteen of the autobiographical volume, "From 
Alien to Citizen."* 



♦Copyright, by Fleming H. Revell Co. Reprinted by permission of 
the publishers. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 97 



THE CRIMINAL IMMIGRANT 

To recall prison experiences is not pleasant, and would not 
be profitable, if this were merely a narration of what hap- 
pened to one individual, a quarter of a century ago. Condi- 
tions are not sufficiently changed, either in judicial procedure 
or in methods of punishment, to make this account of historic 
importance. Its value lies only in the fact that no changes 
have occurred, and that my experience then is still the com- 
mon fate of multitudes of immigrants, who swell the crim- 
inal records of their race or group, and are therefore looked 
upon with dislike and apprehension. 

The jail in w T hich I found myself was an unredeemed, 
vermin-infested building, crowded by a motley multitude of 
strikers and strike breakers, — bitter enemies all, their animos- 
ity begotten in the elemental struggle for bread, and hating 
one another with an unmodified, primitive passion.* 

The strikers had the advantage over us, for they were 
more numerous and were acquainted with the ways of 
American officials. This gave them the opportunity (which 
they improved) to make it unpleasant for the "Hunkies." 

The straw mattress upon which 1 slept the first night was 
missing the second ; salt more completely spoiled the mixture 
called by courtesy coffee, and the only thing which saved me 
from bodily hurt was the fact that there was no spot on me 
which was not already suffering. 

I mention without malice and merely as a fact in race 
psychology, that the Irish were the most cruel to us, with the 
Germans a close second, while the Welsh were not only in- 
offensive, but sometimes kind. 

One of them, David Hill — smaller than the ordinary 
Welshman, but with the courage of his Biblical namesake — 
stood between me and a burly Irish Goliath who wanted to 
thrash this particular "furriner, who came over here to take 

♦The author was working as a miner at Connellsville, Pennsylvania, 
when the strike and general riot occurred, during which he was beaten 
into unconsciousness and hustled off to jail. 



g8 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

away the bread from the lips of dacent, law-abiding Ameri- 
cans." 

The jailer maintained no discipline and heeded no com- 
plaints. His task was to keep us locked up; the bars were 
strong and the key invariably turned. 

The strikers gradually drifted from the jail, being bailed 
out or released, and I was not sorry to see them go. 

Poor food, vermin of many varieties and the various small 
tortures endured, were all as nothing to me compared with 
the fact that for more than six weeks I was permitted to be 
in that jail without a hearing; without even the slightest 
knowledge on my part as to why I had forfeited my liberty. 

From the barred jail window I could see the workmen 
going unhindered to their tasks ; on Sunday pastor and people 
passed, as they went to worship their Lord who, too, was 
once a prisoner. None, seemingly, gave us a thought or even 
responded by a smile to the hunger for sympathy which I 
know my face must have expressed. 

My letters to the Austro-Hungarian Consul remained un- 
answered, and the jailer gave my repeated questionings only 
oaths for reply. 

The day of my hearing finally came, and I was dragged 
before the judge. The proceedings were shockingly disor- 
derly, irreverent and unjust. I was charged with shooting 
to kill. The weapon which had been found in my pocket 
was the revolver bequeathed me by the dying man in the 
Pittsburgh boarding house. As all its six cartridges were 
safely embedded in rust, the charge was changed to "carry- 
ing concealed weapons." I think my readers will agree 
with me that the sentence of one hundred dollars fine and 
three months in the county jail was out of all proportion to 
the offence. 

The court wasted exactly ten minutes on my case, and 
then I was returned to my quarters in the jail, an accredited 
prisoner. Let me here record the fact that I carried back 
to my cell a fierce sense of injustice and a contempt for the 
laws of this land and its officials; feelings that later ripened 
into active sympathy with anarchy, which at that time occu- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 99 

pied the attention of the American people. My knowledge of 
that subject came to me through old newspapers- which 
drifted as waste around the jail. 

In all those months, more than six, for my fine had to be 
worked out, or rather idled out, no one came to me to com- 
fort or explain. For more than six months I was with 
thugs, tramps, thieves and vermin. I was a criminal immi- 
grant, a component element of the new immigration prob- 
lem. 

I recall all this now in no spirit of vengeance; as far as 
my memory is concerned, I have purged it of all hate. I 
recall my experience because those same conditions exist to- 
day in more aggravated form, while multitudes of ignorant, 
innocent men suffer and die in our jails and penitentiaries. 

Since then I have visited most of the county jails, prisons 
and penitentiaries in which immigrants are likely to be found. 
Intelligent and humane wardens, of whom there are a few, 
have told me that more than half the alien prisoners are 
suffering innocently, from transgressing laws of which they 
were ignorant, and that their punishment is too often much 
more severe than necessary. 

The following narration of several incidents which re- 
cently came under my observation will be pardoned, I hope, 
when their full import is seen. 

Not long ago I went to lecture in a Kansas town, — one 
of those irreproachable communities in which it is good to 
bring up children because of the moral atmosphere. The 
town has a New England conscience with a Kansas attach- 
ment. It boasts of having been a station in the under- 
ground railway, and it maintains a most uncompromising at- 
titude toward certain social delinquencies, especially the sale 
of liquor. 

Upon my arrival I was cordially received by a committee, 
and one of its members told me that the jail was full of 
criminal foreigners — Greeks. What crimes they had com- 
mitted he did not know. 

Recalling my own experience, I made inquiries and found 
that six Greeks were in the county jail. They had been 



100 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

arrested in September (it was now March) charged with 
the heinous crime of having gone to the unregenerate State 
of Nebraska, where they purchased a barrel of beer which 
they drank on the Sabbath day in their camp by the rail- 
road. 

Possibly these Greeks were just ignorant foreigners and 
now harbor no sense of injustice suffered; possibly they still 
think this country "the land of the free and the home of the 
brave." They may even be ready to obey its laws and rev- 
erence its institutions. I do not know how they feel, but I 
do know this: those Greeks were kept in prison for break- 
ing a law of which they were ignorant, and even if they 
were aware of its existence and broke it knowingly, the 
punishment did not fit the crime. 

They were kept as criminals and regarded as criminals; 
they were unvisited and uncomforted; and they were incar- 
cerated at a time when their country called for her native 
sons to do battle against the Turk. 

Some day the sense of injustice suffered may come to 
them, and they will ask themselves whether every man in 
Kansas who drinks beer is punished as they were. They will 
wonder why real criminals go free, or escape with 
nominal punishment. I venture to predict that in some 
great crisis, when this country needs men who respect her 
laws and love her institutions, these men, and multitudes of 
others who have suffered such injustices as they have, will 
fail her. 

I pleaded for those imprisoned Greeks that night, and my 
plea was effective. The just judge who condemned them 
pardoned them; but so just was he that the fine of one hun- 
dred dollars each, not yet paid, was left hanging over them, 
and to their credit be it said, they remained in that town 
and paid every cent of it. This judge no doubt knows his 
New Testament; he certainly made the Greeks pay the 
"uttermost farthing" before his outraged sense of justice was 
appeased. 

Those Greeks spent, together, over three years in jail, 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH IOI 

forfeited more than fifteen hundred dollars in wages, and 
lost in bodily health and self-respect beyond calculation. 

Another incident occurred last spring as I was passing 
through a border on one of those nerve-racking coal roads. 

At a small, desolate mining village a group of men en- 
tered the car, unwillingly enough. They were chained to 
one another and were driven to their seats with curses and 
the butt of a gun. They were Italian miners, part of that 
human material now scattered all over the United States, 
carried by something swifter, though not less insistent than 
the glacial movements which graved the beds of the rivers 
and shifted so much of earth's original scenery. There was 
some danger of violence, and the accompanying minions of the 
law held back the angry passengers. There was scarcely a 
moment, however, when they themselves did not apply some 
vigorous measure to assure themselves that three undersized 
Southern Italians, chained to one another, should not escape 
them. 

The car was uncomfortably crowded and grew more so at 
every station; for the next day the new governor was to be 
inaugurated at the capital, toward which our train was 
leisurely travelling. 

I had some difficulty in ethnologically classifying the man 
who shared my seat. He was large, the colonel and major 
type, although his head was rounder. The features, too, 
were of a different cast, his speech less refined and his man- 
ners less gentle. 

He wore a broad, new hat, 'his hair was long, curling 
slightly, and he had an air of special importance, the cause 
of which I discovered later. 

"I wonder why they are treating those poor fellows so 
roughly," I audibly soliloquized, turning to him. He was 
studying a typewritten document and evidently did not relish 
the interruption. 

"Is that any of your business?" he asked, punctuating the 
short sentence with a liberal supply of oaths. 

"Yes, I have no other business," I replied. "I travel 



102 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

about the world trying to find out why we people treat one 
another as we do, if we happen to be of different races." 

"What kind of business is that?" looking up from his 
manuscript and regarding me suspiciously. 

"Well," I said, "we call that 'Social Psychology.' " 

"That's a new graft," he replied with a laugh. "How 
much is there in it?" 

"A little money and a great deal of joy," I said with an 
answering smile. 

Then he folded his manuscript and made ready to find out 
more about my "graft," which I proceeded to explain. 

"You see, from the beginning, when a man saw another 
who wasn't just like him, he said: 'Will he kill me or shall 
I kill him?' Then they both went about finding out. The 
man who survived regarded himself as the greater man, and 
his descendants belonged to the superior race. 

"We haven't gone much beyond that point," I continued. 
"We hide our primitive hate under what we proudly call 
race prejudice or patriotism, but it's the old, unchanged fear 
and dislike of the unlike, and we act very much as the sav- 
ages did who may have lived here before the glaciers ploughed 
up your State and helped to manufacture the coal you are 
now digging. 

"I don't know you," I went on, "but I am pretty sure 
that you feel mean toward those poor 'Dagoes' just because 
you want to assert your superiority. 

"I have discovered that a man isn't quite happy unless he 
can feel himself superior to something, and these mountain 
folk of yours take those mangy, hungry looking dogs along 
just so they can have something to kick. Am I right?" 

"Well," he replied, clearing his throat and straightening 
himself, while into his eyes came a steel-like coldness, "you 
don't mean to say that we are not superior to these Dagoes, 
these Black Hand murderers?" 

"No, I am not ready to say that yet; but tell me about 
them. Whom did they kill, and how?" 

Then he told me the story and he knew it well, for he 
was a re-elected State official now going to be sworn in. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 103 

There was a coal miners' strike — rather a chronic disease in 
that somewhat lawless State — and the militia was called out. 
Violence begat violence, and one of the militiamen, standing 
guard at night, was killed by a bullet, fired from a Winches- 
ter rifle at an approximately certain distance. 

The Italians were found at that place the next day, were 
arrested, and were now on their way to the county seat to 
be tried. 

My companion evidently had found my "graft" interest- 
ing, for he permitted me to interview the Italians. 

None of them knew definitely of what crime they were 
accused, and all, of course, protested their innocence. 

None of them had served as soldiers and all said they 
were unacquainted with the use of firearms. 

When we reached the end of the road where we were all 
admonished to change cars and not forget our parcels, the 
officer graciously allowed me to make an experiment. The 
men were freed from their shackles, and I told them that a 
high and mighty official was watching them and that the 
best marksman of the group would find favor in his sight. 
They were then in turn given the Winchester rifle, which 
they handled as if it were a pickaxe. They did not know how 
to load it, and after it was loaded for them and I asked them 
to fire, they fell upon their knees and begged to be per- 
mitted to show their prowess with a stiletto, the use of 
which they understood. Within twenty-four hours additional 
testimony was furnished, which proved beyond doubt that 
the Italians were not implicated in the crime with which 
they were charged. 

I felt deeply grateful to the man who permitted me to 
intervene in their behalf; but what would have happened if 
by chance, or the power we call Providence, I had not been 
thrown into the sphere of their suffering? Undoubtedly they 
would have been convicted of murder and paid the penalty 
for a crime which they never committed. 

Not only is ignorance of our laws and language a fruit- 
ful cause of the delinquency of immigrants and their children, 
but the venality of police officials, the condition of our 



104 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

courts and prisons, not only fail to inspire respect, but con- 
tribute much to the development of those criminal tendencies 
with which nature has, to a degree, endowed all men. . . . 

Fortunately, I left the county jail with no thirst for blood ; 
but with a fiercer passion to right the wrongs under which 
men suffer, and that, I think, was my one purpose in life 
when the prison door closed behind me. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH IO5 



INDUSTRIALISM AND THE IMMIGRANT 

We talk much about the American home, which is even 
yet the basis of national well-being, although many of its 
functions are abrogated. The home 6till determines the 
good or ill of the child, and through him the good or ill of 
the nation. Yet we permit millions of people to work, with 
no chance to make a real home. 

Children there will be, Nature sees to that ; but what kind 
of children can be begotten in our slums ? 

The slums in America are as much a national disgrace as 
they are a national menace. The gunmen of New York 
were bred in hovels which even the home-making genius of 
the Jewish people could not turn into homes, or make fit for 
the training of children to decent living. 

You who go slumming to see the sights, and turn up your 
sensitive noses at the bad smells, and your eyes to heaven, 
thanking God that you "are not as other men," must not 
forget that the vast majority of our foreign-born workers are 
compelled to live as they do by economic and social forces, 
which they cannot control. 

You remain ignorant of the brave struggles for the home, 
and the heroic stand for virtue behind those sooty walls. You 
know nothing of the fear of God, the desire to obey His law, 
and the love of their country, which filters in to those recep- 
tive souls. 

The growth and power of the I. W. W., a revolutionary 
organization of the most radical type, anti-national, anti-re- 
ligious, repudiating God and State with horrifying blasphemy, 
were made possible by the fact that our industrial leaders, 
our so-called "hard-headed business men," have the hard 
spot in their hearts and a very soft spot in their heads. 

Of all the blind men I have met, the blindest are those far- 
sighted ones who see wealth in everything, and every com- 
mon bush aflame with gold, and see nothing else. Blind 
they are to their own larger good, blind to the nation's needs, 



106 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

blind to the signs of the times. The social weal of our 
country is in the hands of the most unsocial. . . . 

As I analyze my own relation to the nation of which I 
am as much a part as if I had been born under its flag, I 
find that it rests itself upon the feeling of gratitude. Not for 
the bread I eat, for I had bread enough in my native coun- 
try ; not for the comfort of home, for I had fair comforts be- 
fore I came; not even for liberty and democracy as abstrac- 
tions, or even as embodied in the State ; for I have found that 
freedom is within, and democracy a matter of attitude to- 
wards one's fellows. 

I am grateful for the chance I have had here to develop 
unhampered my own self, for a certain largeness of vision 
which I think I would not have developed anywhere else ; for 
the richness which a broad, unhindered contact with all sorts 
and conditions of men has brought into my life. 

There is something more than gratitude in my heart now. 
There is a larger sense of the values I received which I have 
not yet appropriated. There is in my heart a sublime pas- 
sion for America. Would it have grown into the burning 
flame it is, if I had always worked in New York's sweat- 
shops ? 

If I had been beaten by New York's police? If I had 
reared my family in a tenement, and had to send my children 
to work when they should have played and studied ? 

If I had known America only through her yellow journal- 
ism, and sensed her spirit only in ward elections? I do not 
know. 

What has kept me from becoming an Anarchist, from be- 
ing jailed or hanged for leading mobs against their despoilers, 
God alone knows. His guidance is as unquestioned as it is 
mysterious. There were disclosed to me, early in my career, 
in some strange way, the spiritual values latent here. In 
spite of the gross, granite-like materialism at the top, I dis- 
covered the richness of the heritage left by the fathers of this 
Republic; in spite of the poverty and hardship in which I 
had to share, I saw here the fine quality of its vision ; in 
spite of the crudeness of its blundering ways, all the love a 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 107 

man may have for a country grew in my heart, and changed 
only in growing stronger. Yet I am not in the mood to call 
to account those toilers whose patriotism is less fervent than 
mine and whose ideals are still held in check by the "stomach 
line." 

Editors and preachers, teachers and capitalists, with all 
the loud if not mighty host of us who are yammering about 
the want of patriotism among the masses, and the weakness 
of our national spirit ; we are the first who must move a notch 
higher in our love of country and above the "stomach line." 
We must make real the spiritual ideals for which this country 
stands, or at least try to realize them, before we can teach the 
alien and his children, or even our own, the meaning of liberty 
and democracy. Before we can ask them to die for our coun- 
try we shall have to learn to live for it, and the definite task 
we have before us is not the mere idolatry of our flag, or the 
making of shard and shell. 

To provide an adequate wage for our men, to so arrange 
our industrial order that there shall not be feverish activity 
to-day, and idleness, poverty, bread lines and soup kitchens 
to-morrow. To make working conditions tolerable, to pro- 
vide against accidents and sickness, unemployment and old 
age, and to be true to the life about us. 

These are national factors, essential to the making of an 
effective national state in our industrial age. Capital, in 
common with labor, must learn how to lend itself to the 
national purpose ; for we have come upon a time, or the time 
has come upon us, when we must learn how to melt all 
classes, all sections and all races into a final unit. This is 
the time to touch the hearts and gain the confidence of all 
the people by a high regard for all, so that together we may 
turn our faces towards our ultimate goal. . . . 

The Commonwealth Steel Company of Granite City, Illi- 
nois, one of those remarkable corporations with a soul, whose 
business is rooted in the ideal of service, found its foreign 
laborers quartered in what was called "Hungry Hollow." 
This company so exemplified the American spirit of fair play 
that, when the foreign employees were aroused to proper civic 



108 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

pride, they rebaptized "Hungry Hollow" into "Lincoln 
Place," because Lincoln's spirit was manifested towards them. 

The Lincoln Progressive Club, as they named their organi- 
zation, has as its immediate aim the study of the English 
language, and Americanization. 

I wish there might be erected in every industrial center a 
statue of Abraham Lincoln for masters and men to see and 
reverence, thus being reminded of their duty towards each 
other and towards their common country. 

What a people we could become if the immortal words he 
spoke were graven upon the pedestal of such a statue, "With 
malice towards none, with charity towards all," ... to greet 
our eyes daily 3 and to challenge our conduct. 

The history of the United States since the Civil War has 
not yet been written, for it is the story of an epoch just clos- 
ing. It marks the sudden leaping of a people into wealth, 
if not into power; the fabulous growth of cities, the end of 
the pioneer stage, the beginning of an industrial period, and 
the pressure of economic and social problems towards their 
solution. 

At least twenty millions of people have come full grown 
into our national life from the steerage, the womb out of 
which so many of us were born into this newer life. Most of 
us came to build and not to destroy; we came as helpers and 
not exploiters ; we brought virtues and vices, much good and 
ill, and that, not because we belonged to this or the other na- 
tional or racial group, but because we were human. 

It is as easy to prove that our coming meant the ill of the 
nation as that it meant its well-being. To appraise this fully 
is much too early ; it is a task which must be left to our chil- 
dren's children, who will be as far removed from to-Hay's 
scant sympathies as from its overwhelming prejudices. 

The great war has swung us into the current of world 
events, and it ought to bring us a larger vision of the forces 
and processes which shape the nations and make their peoples. 
As yet we are thinking hysterically rather than historically, 
and the indications are that we may not learn anything, nor 
yet unlearn, of which we have perhaps the greater need. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH lOg 

Thus far we have become narrower rather than broader, 
for the feeling towards our alien population is growing daily 
less generous, and our treatment of it less wise. 

Nor am I sure in what wisdom consists; the situation is 
complex; for we are the Balkan with its national, racial and 
religious contentions. We are Russia with its Ghetto, its 
Polish and Finnish problem. We are Austria and Hungary 
with their linguistic and dynastic difficulties. We are Africa 
and Asia; we are Jew and Gentile; we are Protestant and 
Greek and Roman Catholic. We are everything out of 
which to shape the one thing, the one nation, the one people. 

Yet I am sure that we cannot teach these strangers the 
history of their adopted country, and make it their own, un- 
less we teach them that our history is theirs as well as ours, 
and that their traditions are ours, at least as far as they 
touch humanity generally, and convey to all men the bless- 
ings which come from the struggle against oppression and su- 
perstition. 

In their inherited, national prejudices, in their racial hates, 
in their tribal quarrels, we wish to have no share, except as 
we hope to help them forget the old world hates in the new 
world's love. 

None of us who have caught a vision of what America may 
mean to the world wish to perpetuate here any one phase of 
Europe's civilization or any one national ideal. 

Although our institutions are rooted in English history, 
though we speak England's language and share her rich heri- 
tage of spiritual and cultural wealth, we do not desire to be 
again a part of England, or nourish here her ideals of an 
aristocratic society. 

In spite of the fact that for nearly three hundred years a 
large part of our population has been German, and that our 
richest cultural values have come from Germany, in spite of 
her marvellous resources in science, commerce and govern- 
ment, we do not care to become German, and I am sure that 
Americans of German blood or birth would be the first to 
repudiate it, should Germany's civilization threaten to fasten 
itself upon us. 



110 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

We do not wish to be Russian, in spite of certain values 
inherent in the Slavic character, nor do we desire to be 
French. 

We do crave to be an American people — and develop here 
an American civilization ; but if we are true to the manifold 
genius of our varied peoples, we may develop here a civiliza- 
tion, richer and freer than any of these, based upon all of 
them, truly international and therefore American. 

Historians tell us that the history of the United States 
illumines and illustrates the historic processes of all ages and 
all people. 

To this they add the disconcerting prophecy that we are 
drifting towards the common goal, and that our doleful 
future can be readily foretold. We have had our hopeful 
morning, our swift and brilliant noon, and now the dark and 
gruesome end threatens us. 

I will not believe this till I must. 

I will not, dare not lose the hope that we can make this 
country to endure firmly, to weather the storm, or at least 
put off the senility of old age to the last inevitable moment. 

When, however, the end comes, as perhaps it must, I pray 
that we may project our hopes and ideals upon the last page 
of our history, so that it may read thus: This was a state, 
the first to grow by the conquest of nature, and not of nations. 
Here was developed a commerce based upon service, and not 
upon selfishness; a religion centering in humanity and not in 
a church. 

Here was maintained sovereignty without a sovereign, and 
here the people of all nations grew into one nation, held to- 
gether by mutual regard, not by the force of law. 

Here the State was maintained by the justice, confidence 
and loyalty of its people, and not by battleships and arma- 
ments. When it perished, it was because the people had lost 
faith in God and in each other. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH III 



GEORGE A. GORDON 

The Old South Church, Boston, has had a prominent and patriotic 
part in American history since early days. It was a Puritan immi- 
grant and layman of this church, Samuel Sewall, who was one of 
the first to speak out against human slavery in his tract, "The Sell- 
ing of Joseph" ; and it was in this church that the five patriotic ad- 
dresses, published in 1917 under the title, "The Appeal of the Na- 
tion," were delivered by George Angier Gordon, pastor of the 
church since 1884. The Rev. Dr. Gordon, who was born in Scot- 
land in 1853 and received his common school education there, came 
to the United States in 1871. In 1881 he obtained the degree A.B. 
from Harvard. He has since served his Alma Mater frequently in 
the capacity of University preacher, and many Harvard men will 
recall his inspiring talks in the college chapel. In the following 
selection he manifests the poignant homesickness, the sterling loyalty, 
and the noble aspiration so common in the writings of the immigrant. 



112 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

THE FOREIGN-BORN AMERICAN CITIZEN: 

COST, PRIVILEGE AND DUTIES OF HIS 

CITIZENSHIP 

The Republic of the United States is in fact a nation of 
immigrants, a nation of aliens. All have made the great 
migration, ail have come hither from other parts of the 
earth. The only difference among Americans is that some 
came earlier while others came much later, indeed as it were 
yesterday, to these shores. The only aboriginal American 
is the Indian. This historic fact should be forever borne in 
mind. We came hither first or last, across the ocean, and 
from the ends of the earth. 

There is however a ground of distinction among Ameri- 
cans ; they are rightly divided into native citizens and citizens 
foreign-born. The native citizen has grown into the being 
of the society that his alien ancestors helped to form. He 
has in his blood an American inheritance; his instincts have 
been fed with native food; he is alive to nothing else as he 
is to the American Republic. We foreign-born Americans 
acknowledge his distinction, we rejoice in his happiness, we 
count ourselves fortunate to stand with him in the great com- 
munion of free citizens. We ask him, in his turn, to read in 
the story of our migration the struggle of his ancestors; we 
remind him of what we left behind, what we brought with 
us, and at what cost we gained our American citizenship. 

In the words that I have chosen as my text* we have a 
foreign-born Roman citizen. Exactly where he was born we 
do not know; we do know that he was born outside Roman 
citizenship. He was, therefore, an adopted citizen of the 
Roman Empire, and to this he refers in the words that I 
have quoted, "With a great sum obtained I this citizenship." 

There are three implications in these words: the cost of 
citizenship to this man; the privilege of citizenship to him; 

*And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this 

< iiizenship. — Acts xxii. 28. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 113 

his duty as a Roman citizen. These three points will be a 
convenient guide to us in our discussion of the subject of the 
morning, — "The Foreign-born American Citizen." 

1. First of all, then, there is the cost to this man of citi- 
zenship in the Roman Empire. He obtained it with a great 
sum; to get it made him poor. 

There are few among native-born American citizens who 
understand the sacrifice made by the foreign-born citizens of 
the heritage of childhood and boyhood in the wonder world 
of early life. There is the bereavement of the early mystic, 
unfathomable touch of nature that comes to one only through 
one's native land. Never again to see the sun rise and set over 
the dear old hills, with the hero's mantle like the bloom of 
the heather resting upon them, and the shadow of an im- 
memorial race, is truly a great bereavement. Never again to 
see the green pastures, with the flocks quietly feeding in 
them, under the shade of the plot of trees here and there 
mercifully provided by the humanity of previous generations, 
nor to hear the music of the river that has sung into being 
and out of being forty generations of human lives ; never again 
to see the fields covered with corn, nor to hear the reaper's 
song among the yellow corn ; never again to see the light that 
welcomed you when you were born, that smiled on you when 
you were baptized, that went with you to school, that 
watched your play, that constituted the beautiful, the glorious 
environment of your early days ; never again to hear the song 
of the native birds, the skylark in the morning, the mavis at 
nightfall, and the wild whistle of the blackbird under the 
heat of noon from his thorny den, — all this is simply inex- 
pressible bereavement. Nature is inwoven with the soul in 
its earliest years; its beauty, its wildness, its soul becomes 
part of the soul of every deep-hearted human being, and 
never again can nature be seen as she was seen through the 
wonder of life's morning. 

It is this spell of nature over the young soul that gives its 
exquisite pathos to Hood's world-familiar melody : 



114 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

"I remember, I remember, 

The house where I was born, 
The little window where the sun 

Came peeping in at morn; 
He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day, 
But now I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away! 



"I remember, I remember, 

The fir trees dark and high ; 
I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky: 
It was a childish ignorance, 

But now 'tis little joy 
To know I'm farther off from heav'n 

Than when I was a boy." 



There it is, the mystic, divine influence of nature through 
the atmosphere of the country of one's birth ; every immigrant 
to this country makes that great surrender. 

There is, too, the early humanity. You go down town, 
you who are native-born American citizens, and every day 
you meet those whom you have known from birth, your 
earliest playmates and schoolmates, and those who went to 
college with you, who entered business with you, who fought 
side by side with you through the Great War, who loved 
what you loved in early life, revered what you revered, 
laughed at what you laughed at and felt as you felt over the 
glory and the tenderness of existence. You do not know what 
they have left behind them who never see a face that they 
knew in childhood, who will never meet again, till time is no 
more, a schoolmate or an early companion, who will never 
gather again in the old home with father and mother and 
brothers and sisters; only the most favored have had a 
fugitive glance, like looking at a telegraph pole from an 
express train, of those dear, early faces. There is a whole 
world of bereavement of early, tender, beautiful humanity on 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 115 

the part of all who come here. And this again you hear in 
those two verses in "Auld Lang Syne": — 

"We twa hae run about the braes, 

And pu'd the gowans fine, 
But we've wander'd monie a weary foot 

Sin' auld lang syne. 

"We twa hae paidl'd in the burn 

From morning sun till dine, 
But seas between us braid hae roar'd 

Sin' auld lang syne." 



There is one other surrender : there is the suffering of ad- 
justment in a new country. The first year I spent in Boston, 
from July, 1871, to considerably more than July, 1872, I 
conceived my condition to be as near that of the spirits in 
hell as anything I could well imagine ! To be in a city 
where nobody knew you, where you knew nobody, where so 
many wanted to take advantage of the "greenhorn," to laugh 
at him if he ever grew for a moment a bit sentimental, was 
not exactly heaven. Many and many a time I went down to 
the wharf to see the ships with their white sails, written all 
over with invisible tidings from the far, sunny islands left 
behind, and if I had not been restrained by shame and pride I 
should have gone home. That is the experience of Scandi- 
navian, English, Scotch, Irish, Teuton, Slav, Armenian, 
Syrian, and Latin ; the great bereavement of nature and of 
early humanity is deepened by the sorrow of readjustment in 
a foreign land. "With a great sum obtained we this citizen- 
ship"; few understand it, few indeed. Foreign-born Ameri- 
can citizenship is preceded by a vast sacrifice, and you never 
can understand that sort of citizenship till you take account 
of this really profound experience. 

2. The next thing in the experience of the chief captain 
was his privilege as a Roman citizen. His station and bear- 
ing and power told of that privilege. He was a military 
tribune in the legion stationed in Jerusalem; he had risen to 



I l6 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

important command and power impossible for him, inaccess- 
ible to him if he had not obtained citizenship. 

America has been called the land of opportunity. Look at 
this fact in three directions only, since time will not allow 
more. The common workman may become, by intelligence, by 
diligence and by fidelity, the master workman. Cast your eyes 
over the land to-day and assemble the master workmen, and 
you will find that the vast majority of them have risen from 
the position of ordinary workmen to the chief places in their 
trade and calling. Such a chance for ascension in a broad 
way for all competent men, in the Old World, is a simple 
impossibility. The chance does not exist there. Men rise 
there by talent and by luck, by talent and by favoritism. But 
here in a broad and magnificent manner they rise by talent 
and industry, fidelity and force; here as nowhere else, they 
have a chance to work out what is in them. 

Consider this in the things of the intellect. The Old 
World calls us an uneducated race. It is true that we have 
not many great scholars; the reason is that we are engaged 
with immediate pressing problems; we apply intelligence to 
living issues which in other lands is applied to the Genitive 
and the Accusative and the Dative cases of the Latin and 
Greek languages. When we look backward and consider the 
provision made for the intellect of the nation during the last 
fifty years, we claim that there is no parallel to it in any 
country on which the sun shines. More money has gone to 
found colleges and schools and universities for men and for 
women, open to all talent from ocean to ocean and from the 
Canadian border to the Gulf, than was ever dedicated to 
education in the same length of time in the history of man- 
kind. Not only is there provision for the regulars, but also 
for the irregulars ; all sorts of evening schools flourish in our 
cities where the first teachers of the community are available 
for talented and aspiring youth of slender means. Men are 
practicing medicine and law; they are in the ministry and in 
other professions, usually called learned, who never saw the 
inside of a college or a university, who have obtained an edu- 
cation in what is called an irregular way, from and by the 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 117 

very men who are teaching in these regular academic institu- 
tions. 

Let me remind you of the abundant hospitality, the won- 
derful generosity of the American people toward aspiring 
youth. Talent which would be ignored in Great Britain, 
promise which would be sneered at in every continental 
country in Europe, is here discovered and encouraged to de- 
velop into power. This is a phenomenon of which we must 
never lose sight, the chance here in the United States for a 
man to be intellectually all that it is possible for him to be. 
The best teachers may often be seen here wielding the edu- 
cational power of history and the arts to train the youth to 
whom college is an impossibility, for service requiring edu- 
cated powers, in his day and generation. 

There is to be noted the opportunity in the way of charac- 
ter and moral influence that comes to citizens of the United 
States. What does that mean? The chance to change and 
improve the law of the land, the chance for a man to change 
and improve the government of the United States, the 
chance to modify, in the line of humanity, the social feeling 
of the United States. And freedom is here the condition of 
all; every man who complains that things are not what they 
should be has a chance by his vote to remedy the abuse and to 
take another step toward the ideal. 

Here again there is something new, measuring it against 
the whole people. We are dupes and fools when we allow 
ourselves to be ruled by groups in this country; we are free 
men, with the power in our hands. If we have moral ideals 
of our own, and moral character, we can so use them as to 
lift the character of the land in which we live. 

3. Finally, there was the duty of the tribune as a Roman 
citizen. Paul was about to be bound and tortured, without 
trial, when he appealed to the chief captain, "Is it lawful for 
you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" 
This startled the man. "Tell me, art thou a Roman ? Good 
heavens, this will never do! 1 am pledged to do my duty! 
Get off those shackles and set the man free and guard his; 
life !" There was the man's sense of his duty. 



Il8 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRTTINGS 

What is the duty of foreign-born American citizens? 
First to learn the English language and to prefer it to all 
other tongues on the face of the earth. That tongue comes 
in the splendor of a June day; it breaks over life like a June 
sunrise, with an atmosphere, tone, beauty, and power which 
for Americans must ever be unapproachable. Let no Ameri- 
can citizen hug his foreign tongue, go into the closet with it 
and shut out the light of the great English language which 
carries all our ideals as Americans ! The very vessel of the 
Lord it is, in which American freedom is carried, — the lan- 
lauge of Shakespeare and Milton, the incomparable free man ; 
the language of Bacon and Burke and Washington and Ham- 
ilton and Webster and Lincoln. This tongue consecrates the 
immigrant who would be a citizen ; he never can be a citizen 
of the United States without that, never. This is the tongue 
that carries in a unique translation the literature of Israel; 
the Bible is the maker of free peoples. 

Next, we foreign-born American citizens must read the 
story of the Revolution into our blood. What is the signifi- 
cance of the Revolution for the foreign-born American citi- 
zen? These men were Englishmen or the sons of English- 
men; they loved the British Isles better than any portion of 
the earth's surface, except their own Colonies; they loved 
them with an inexpressible love. Yet when it came to ques- 
tion of principle they stood out and said, "We must be free ; 
the Colonies, or the United States, first !" You recall Daniel 
Webster's splendid eloquence here : — 

"On this question of principle, while actual suffering was 
yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, 
for purposes of foreign conquest and subjection, Rome in the 
height of her glory is not to be compared, — a power which 
has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her pos- 
sessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, follow- 
ing the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the 
earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial 
airs of England." 

Against that power to which they were as nothing, against 
that lovely land of their origin they stood out when it was 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 119 

a question of their own independence and their own man- 
hood. 

That applies to every foreign-born American citizen to- 
day, — Saxon, Celt, Scandinavian, Teuton, Slav, Latin, 
Syrian, bond and free. Learn the lesson of the Revolution. 
This country will have no hands upon it, from any origin, 
anywhere outside of itself. Learn the lesson of the Civil 
War; the nation that set to work to keep its integrity as a 
political whole, to keep its integrity as a human whole, to 
fight, as it had done a foreign dominion, an evil genius inside 
its own border. There again is a vast lesson to all of us who 
are foreign-born. Once again we should store in memory 
and ponder in clearest conscience and intelligence the great 
ideas, the great political ideas of America as they are exhib- 
ited in Washington, in Hamilton the Nationalist and in Jeffer- 
son the State Rights' patriot; and again in Webster and 
Calhoun, in Lincoln and the Confederate, and as they issued 
at last in a true conception of State freedom in a sisterhood 
of States that constitutes a great nation. These things should 
be part of the common store of knowledge of the adopted 
citizen. They are the great forces that have moved this 
country from its earliest beginning, and that have lifted it 
into power and renown. 

America must be first ; cherish your love for the old coun- 
try, your tenderness, — a man does not need to hate his mother 
because he loves his wife, but it is his duty to stand by his 
wife even against his mother. What kind of a country should 
we have if every citizen, when trouble comes, should prefer 
in loyalty the land of his birth ! What a confused mob of a 
country we should have! Duty overrides origin, tradition, 
sentiment. Here and here alone is our supreme and in- 
violable obligation. 

I often think that this great country of ours is ultimately 
to be the deepest-hearted and the brightest-minded nation of 
the world. Hither come, with sore hearts, burdened human- 
ity and quickened intelligence, the elect from all nations. You 
look at them when they land, and you laugh. If you had 
been in Quebec when I landed, perhaps you would not have 



120 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

wanted me as your minister! The elect from all nations, 
parts of a splendid orchestra, — violin, flute, cornet, drum, 
trumpet, and a score of other instruments, all pouring forth 
their genius to make the great, swelling, soul-stirring sym- 
phony of this mighty nation. Thus from Scandinavia, Ger- 
many, France, Italy, Russia, Armenia, Greece; from Eng- 
land, Ireland, and Scotland they come, — all are here with 
great souls to make a new and greater America. Out of this 
composite land, this Pentecostal nation, — sometimes it seems 
t© me minus the Holy Ghost, — this nation gathered from 
every people under the heaven, rags and tatters and dirt and 
all, I believe the Eternal Spirit will evolve and establish the 
most gifted, the most far-shining and the mightiest people in 
the world. God grant that our dream may come true ! 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 121 



SERAPHIM G. CANOUTAS 

An American Greek who has traveled extensively throughout the 
United States, and has mingled freely with his peo-le and therefore 
understands their aspirations and needs, is Seraphim G. Canoutas, 
member of the Boston Bar and author of the "Greek-American 
Guide" and the "Adviser for Greeks in America." 

The following plain recital of Mr. Canoutas's struggle and 
achievement is worthy of presentation here, because it shows that 
what the immigrant seeks for in America he may find, and that 
back of real success and contentment lies the will to serve. He says 
in a letter to the editor: — 

"I arrived in this country fifteen years ago, and my hardships 
during the first five to seven years cannot be briefly told. Still, I 
am glad that I have suffered so much. I was born in a little vil- 
lage of Greece, in 1873 or 1874; I do not know the exact date of 
my birth. There were no records kept in those days, and my par- 
ents were illiterate. There was no school in the little village; no 
church either. I went to school to another village at a distance of 
about three miles. I do not know how I managed to go to what 
they call Gymnasium in Greece, and finally to the University at 
Athens — a very uncommon thing for a poor peasant's son. I grad- 
uated from the University of Athens, Law Department, in 1898, and 
in 1899 I received my license to practise law. But a poor young 
man in those days had no chance whatever to get any clients in Greece, 
except by selling his conscience and his principles to some politician. 
I left Greece immediately after my admission to the bar and settled 
in Constantinople, Turkey, where I started to practise law before 
the Consular Court of Greece. (Each nation maintains separate 
courts for its citizens or subjects in Turkey.) I practised law there 
for over five years and was doing very well. But I wanted to see 
other countries; there was something there which I did not like. I 
went to France, Italy, Austria, and at last I decided to come to 
America. When I arrived in America, I found myself wholly dis- 
couraged. Nobody could give me advice what to do. There were 
very few educated Greeks, fifteen years ago, in this country, and 
they did not know how to help others; they rather discouraged me. 
I knew not a word of Englsh ; but, knowing French, I managed to 
learn some English in a few months. Two years after my arrival 
I started to write a book for the new immigrants under the title of 
"Greek-American Guide," giving them as much information about 
the country as I knew. But books do not pay. Although everybody 
appreciated the usefulness of my book, the purchasers were very few. 

"In 1909 to 1910 I made a trip all over the United States and 



122 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

Canada to gather information about my countrymen from personal 
experience. Finally I met a good American who told me how I 
could study law in this country and be admitted to the bar. In 1912 
I was admitted to the bar in Boston, and have practised law since; 
but I like social work better than law. I have continued to 
lecture to Greeks throughout this State and in New England; and 
I feel a great satisfaction that I have been able to do some good for 
my countrymen, as well as for my adopted country, which offers the 
greatest opportunities to everybody, although it takes a long time 
for a foreigner to find out." 

In 1918 Mr. Canoutas published his "Hellenism in America," dedi- 
cating the book "to the Greeks in America in general, but those 
serving under the glorious American flag in particular ... in per- 
petual remembrance of their devotion to our beloved country and 
their heroic sacrifices for the cause of democracy." From this volume 
the following sensible advice on Americanization is quoted. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 123 



AMERICANIZATION: ITS PRINCIPLES AND 

MEANING 

It was a wrong practice, in my opinion, and against the 
principles of true democracy, for certain Americans to induce 
foreigners to become American citizens quickly if they wished 
"to make more money and to get better jobs." Because love 
of mere money and better jobs, above all other things, leads 
to materialism, plutocracy, bureaucracy and aristocracy, and 
not to true democracy. 

Candidates for admission to citizenship of a democratic 
country should be taught to understand and appreciate the 
superiority and the beauty of its democratic principles instead 
of being promised "better jobs and more money."* 

When a man or woman is inspired by those high and 
noble ideas and principles stated in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and repeated by such unselfish and magnanimous 
heads of a Republic as Lincoln and Wilson, and feels them 
and applies them, we can say that person has been influ- 
enced by Americanism or is Americanized. But unfortu- 
nately a tendency prevails lately to confuse the word "Ameri- 
canization" with the word "naturalization." There is noth- 
ing more erroneous than to consider every naturalized person 
as Americanized, or to accept as a general proposition that a 
person not naturalized cannot be Americanized. Naturaliza- 
tion is simply a matter of form, while Americanization re- 
fers to a person's heart and soul and mind. A naturalized 
American citizen who has not been inspired by the lofty 
principles which Americanism stands for, but who has been 
induced to acquire American citizenship for some material 
profit, bears the same relation to the State as a hypocrite 
bears to the Church. For this reason I have always been 
astonished to hear Americans, even among the best statesmen 
and educators, encouraging wholesale naturalization before 

♦This and the two following paragraphs are part of an address given 
at an Americanization meeting held in Attlehoro, Massachusetts, in 
1917. 



124 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WHITINGS 

they become sure of the Americanization of the applicants. 
What has the State or the nation to gain from the man who 
is induced by the petty politician to become a citizen because 
it pays? What has the State to profit by me, for instance, 
for being an American citizen if I am not Americanized? 
On the contrary, it is dangerous, because in a serious crisis, 
like the present one, I may use my citizenship as a shield in 
defence of my un-American conduct. Common sense there- 
fore requires that the foreigner should not be given that pow- 
erful weapon before we are sure that he will use it in defend- 
ing his fellow-citizens and American institutions, and not in 
destroying them. 

Prudence requires us to educate the foreigner and thor- 
oughly Americanize him, if he appreciates Americanism, be- 
fore admitting him to citizenship. But this education and 
Americanization cannot be carried out successfully by words 
or preaching alone. We must show to the foreigners by our 
example, by acts and deeds, that we ourselves stand for Ameri- 
canism and apply the American ideals in our daily life, in our 
every-day contact with foreigners. 

If Americans look down with contempt upon the immi- 
grant, because he is poor, uneducated, or cursed with certain 
faults which he acquired while living in a poor or ill-governed 
country, they cannot make him believe that America stands 
for democracy, justice and general brotherhood. . . . 

When Americans, in their struggle to instruct the for- 
eigners, have acquired for their own part a better knowledge 
of the characteristics of each race, when they rightly attribute 
the faults of foreigners to the painful conditions under which 
they lived in their own country, when they patiently bring to 
light the better qualities of those whom they aspire to educate, 
then that unity so desirable, so necessary for this great nation, 
will be perfected. Then there will be no more "foreigners," 
but all races will be one people, offering their best efforts to 
the land in which they have equal obligations and equal 
rights. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 125 



STEFANO MIELE 

That one should come to America for the sole purpose of making 
money, as the author of the following selection frankly states he did, 
may seem an unworthy motive; but, after all, it is not essentially 
different from the impulse that causes the country-bred American 
boy to seek the larger cities for what he thinks will be greater 
financial opportunities. Motives, in the final analysis, must be 
judged in large part by their issues and results. 

This young Italian, ambitious to become a lawyer and finding it 
impossible in Italy to get employment with an opportunity to study, 
decided to try his luck in America, where he was willing to "shovel 
coal," "wash dishes," or "do anything to get up." In a little more 
than five years after landing at Ellis Island he was admitted to the 
New York bar. 

The following selection is reprinted from his article, "America as 
a Place to Make Money," published in the issue of The World's 
Work for December, 1920. 



126 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



SOME OBSTACLES TO AMERICANIZATION 

I was about twenty years old when I first thought of going 
to America. But it is not so easy to leave one's native land : 
it was not until three years later that I said good-by to my 
father and mother and our neighbors. I did not think for a 
moment that it was for the last time — I was only going to 
America to make money and then return to Baiano and the 
old folks. 

My father gave me a little money so that I could buy a 
second-class ticket. But I was young; I was starting on my 
first big adventure; and — in Naples my money went, this 
way, that way — I came in the steerage. It was no great 
hardship. My fellow-passengers were Italians, most of them 
laborers, men used to hard work. They were very happy — 
laughing, singing, playing — full of dreams, ambitions. 

Then came Ellis Island! 

Every one crowded — discomfort — lice — dirt — harshness — 
the officers shouting "Come here," "Go there, "as though they 
were driving animals. And then the uncertain period of de- 
tention — sometimes a week, sometimes two, three, or even 
four weeks — it is as though a man were in prison. Ellis 
Island does not give the immigrant a good first lesson in 
Americanization. 

America wants the immigrant as a worker; but does it 
make any effort to direct him, to distribute him to the places 
where workers are needed? No; it leaves the immigrant to 
go here, there, any place. If the immigrant were a horse in- 
stead of a human being, America would be more careful of 
him; if it loses a horse, it feels it loses something; if it loses 
an immigrant, it feels it loses nothing. At any rate, that is 
the way it seems to the immigrant; and it strengthens his 
natural disposition to settle among people of his own race. 

A man needs to be a fighter to come to America without 
friends. I was more fortunate than many: I had a brother 
in America. He worked in a private bank. He met me 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 127 

when I landed and took me to his home in Brooklyn. I 
looked for a job for about a month. I tried to get work on 
the Italian newspapers; I tried to get work in a law office. 
Finally a friend took me to a Jewish law office, and I was 
employed — I was to get 25 per cent, of the fees from any 
clients that I brought in. I stayed there two months and got 
$5. Three months after I arrived in New York I was given 
the kind of a place that I had looked for in vain in my native 
land — one that would enable me to support myself and 
study my chosen profession. I was given a place on an 
Italian religious newspaper. I worked from eight in the morn- 
ing to six in the evening, and attended the night course of 
the New York Law School. 

It was about August when I landed in America, and 
already there was election talk. (It was the year McClellan 
ran for Mayor.) I met some of the Italian-American poli- 
ticians. It is said that I have a gift for oratory. The poli- 
ticians asked what would be my price to talk in the Italian 
sections of the city. I said that I did not want anything. I 
made speeches for McClellan, and I have made speeches in 
every campaign since. 

That was one of the first things that struck me in America 
— that every one working in politics was working for his 
own pocket. Another thing that also amazed me was that 
most of the men elected to an office, in which they are sup- 
posed to deliberate and legislate, were in reality only figure- 
heads taking orders from some one else. They had no inde- 
pendence, no individuality. Another discovery was that the 
Italians with most political influence were men of low mor- 
ality, of low type. Then I discovered the reason: the poli- 
ticians needed repeaters and guerillas, and that was why "the 
boss had to be seen" through a saloon- or dive-keeper. 

A thing that seemed very strange was the way the Amer- 
ican newspapers magnified crime in Italian districts, how they 
made sensational stories out of what were really little happen- 
ings, how they gave the Italians as a people a character for 
criminality and violence. No less strange was the way the 
Italian newspapers answered the American press. They were 



128 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

both building up a barrier of prejudice. If I were to judge 
America through the American newspapers, I would not 
have become an American citizen; or if I could know 
America only through the Italian-American newspapers, I 
would say that the Americans are our enemies. 

It must be frankly admitted, however, that there is a 
change in the second generation, a change that is too fre- 
quently not for the better. As I have said, the majority of 
Italian immigrants come from the rural districts of Italy, 
and, because there is no policy of distribution, most of them 
settle in the big cities, They are not prepared to meet the 
situation presented in a big industrial centre. They think 
to apply the same principle in bringing up children that had 
been applied in the little village or on the farm in Italy. 
They let the children run loose. And in the streets 
of the crowded tenement districts the children see graft, 
pocketpicking, street-walking, easy money here, easy money 
there ; they see the chance to make money without working. 
The remedy is to be found in distributing the newly arrived 
immigrants. 

Most of what I have said has been of the faults of Amer- 
ica. I have spoken of them because they are things that hold 
back Americanization. 

America has been good to me. I have prospered here as I 
could not have prospered in Italy. I came to make money and 
return; I have made money and stayed. A little more 
than five years after I had landed at Ellis Island 
I was admitted to the New York bar. I have already 
had greater success than I dreamed, when I left Italy, 
that I should have. And I look forward to still greater suc- 
cess. For me, America has proved itself, and promises to 
continue to prove itself, the land of opportunity, but I have 
not forgotten Italy — it is foolish to tell any Italian to forget 
Italy. I say Italy; but for me, as for the others, Italy is the 
little village where I was raised — the little hills, the little 
church, the little garden, the little celebrations. I am forty 
years old, but Christmas and Easter never come around but 
what I want to return to Baiano. In my mind I become a 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 129 

little child again. But I know enough to realize that I see 
all those scenes from a distance and with the eye of child- 
hood. 

But even if I wanted to return to Italy, my children would 
not let me. America is their country. My father is dead. I 
have brought my mother here. When an Italian brings his 
parents to America, he is here to stay. 

America is a wonderful nation. But we make a mistake 
if we assume that the Anglo-Saxon is the perfect human be- 
ing. He has splendid qualities, but he also has faults. The 
same thing is true of the Latins. The Anglo-Saxon is pre- 
eminently a business man, an executive, an organizer, ener- 
getic, dogged. But in the Anglo-Saxon's civilization the 
Latin finds a lack of the things that go to make life worth 
living. I remember the returned Italians, the "Americans," 
that I used to see at Baiano: they had made money in 
America and were prosperous and independent, but they had 
also lost something — a certain light-heartedness, a joy in the 
little things — the old jests no longer made them laugh. The 
Latin has the artistic, the emotional temperament, a gift for 
making little things put sunshine into life, a gift for the 
social graces. If the Latin could get the qualities that the 
Anglo-Saxon has, and give to the Anglo-Saxon those that he 
lacks, — if all the nationalities that make up America could 
participate in this give-and-take process, — then we would 
have a real Americanization. 



130 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



JOHN KULAMER 

John Kularaer was born on May 3, 1876, at Spisske Podhradie, 
Spisska Zupa, Czecho-Slovak Republic, and came to this country in 
1891, alone. In June, 1909, he was admitted to the bar in Alle- 
gheny County, Pennsylvania. 

In an article, entitled "Americanization: the Other Side of the 
Case," contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, March, 1920, he says: 
"Although born in far-off Czecho-Slovakia, under the shadow of the 
snow-capped Tatra, I can without boasting say that I yield to no 
one in my loyalty to the Stars and Stripes; and if I differ in my 
views as to the methods to be used in Americanizing those who, like 
me, were born in other countries, I do it out of love for my adopted 
country, and because I am anxious to see these efforts crowned with 
success." 

Mr. Kulamer has favored us with the following essay, in which he 
further presents his ideas on this subject. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 131 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT AND 
AMERICANIZATION 

No matter how uncouth in appearance the immigrant when 
he sets foot on American soil, the criminal fleeing from the 
hands of justice excepted, there burns in his soul an intense 
love for the country of his nativity, inherited from generations 
of his ancestors ; the more primitive his heart, the simpler and 
stronger is this love. He may have come to this country only 
to earn sufficient money to relieve his wants at home or to en- 
large his means of living, or he may have come here as to a 
land of promise of whose great opportunities and larger free- 
dom he has heard, still his heart remains in the land of his 
birth where the ashes of his forefathers are resting and to 
which the memories of his happiest childhood days are cling- 
ing. Leaving his home-nest, forsaking friends and family 
and turning his face to a strange land to mix with people 
whose customs and language he knows not, is a thrilling and 
tragic adventure to every immigrant. And it is well that his 
soul is so constituted, because he has the capacity to become a 
true patriot. Your cosmopolite is of different stuff; he is 
callous and incapable of those noble sentiments which urge 
the patriot to sacrifice even his life for his country, either of 
birth or adoption. A man who pays no homage to any land is 
incapable of harboring those feelings of brotherly love and 
kinship on which the solidarity of a nation rests. If Ameri- 
canizers wish to wean the immigrant from the old to the 
new, they must have genuine respect for his feelings and 
not wound them; he must be wooed, he cannot be forced. 

What is the object of this Americanization which is so 
much talked about and on which so much energy and money 
is spent? Is it simply to wipe out the difference between the 
customs and habits of the older and newer settlers; or is it 
to amalgamate the various human elements into one homo- 
geneous mass, into one nation? If it is the former, it is 



132 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

wasted energy; time will accomplish it. If it is the latter, 
then the aliens must be considered as human beings whose 
souls are made of the same material as those of the Pilgrim 
Fathers. Nations do not appear on the earth spontaneously; 
they are the result of historical growth, lasting for centuries. 
Many factors exert their influences upon a nation in the 
formative stage. Stop immigration, if you can get along with- 
out it, and in another generation the inhabitants of this coun- 
try will be such Americans as America will have made them. 
If they should not turn out to be true Americans, it will be 
America's fault. Even now the children of alien parents 
speak the same language, dress the same way, dance the same 
dances, sing the same songs, have the same good qualities and 
the same faults as the children whose ancestors came here 
sooner. If you want to convert the old folks into Americans, 
then it is necessary to handle the situation with tact. Love is 
a tender plant ; it does not take root easily, and the least in- 
clement weather will blast it ; but it is very sturdy when full 
grown, nothing less than a thunderbolt will shatter it. Fur- 
thermore, it is of a spiritual essence, and money cannot buy it. 

To succeed in this purpose it is, first of all, necessary to 
study each nationality separately. The very fact that all of 
them are treated alike is detrimental. It is unfair to class 
them all alike. They all have their good and bad qualities; 
and justice demands that the latter be not attributed to those 
who do not possess them. There is not one nationality that 
would admit its inferiority to the others, and every one of 
them considers itself equal to, if not better than, many others. 
Consequently, to be classed with races looked down upon is a 
humiliation to which no one with self-respect will submit 
without protest. This is a fact which must not be lost sight 
of; it is rooted in human nature. It is further necessary to 
study the habits, customs, prejudices and inclinations of every 
nationality separately, so that such as are too deeply rooted 
may not be violently antagonized. 

Take, for example, the matter of language. The Swede or 
the Spaniard may not object to being forced by law to learn 
English, because in his mother country this question never 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 133 

arose, it did not enter into his daily life. It is different with 
the Slovak or the Pole, whose soul was stirred to its very 
depths because the Magyar or the Prussian wanted by law to 
force a strange tongue on him. It was a tradition with him 
to resist such an attempt ; he looked upon it as an oppression in 
his mother country, and he is likely to look upon it in the 
same light here. The conditions in Europe and here may be 
different; he may be justified in objecting there and not here; 
but his mind is habituated to opposing the ruling powers in 
their efforts to force upon him a strange language. A com- 
mon workingman is not used to psychological self-analysis or 
to studying archaeology; he is controlled mainly by his 
impulses. He will note only that he is required to submit 
here to laws which he considered oppressive and tyrannical in 
the old country. 

The glories and advantages of this country should not be 
fed to the immigrant in excessive doses, but presented tact- 
fully. He is liable to look upon it as an attempt to humiliate 
him, as unwarranted boasting. It is not difficult to pick flaws 
in the armor of American complacency. Every man is a hero- 
worshipper at heart, and every man has his childhood heroes 
to whom he clings. Judged by an absolute standard, if there 
is such a standard, the American heroes may stand on a higher 
plane ; but if rude hands are placed upon the childhood heroes 
of the alien he is likely to resent it. The skies are just as 
blue, the fields are carpeted just as beautifully with flowers 
and the nights are illuminated with the same glorious stars on 
the Eastern as on the Western Hemisphere. The majority of 
the aliens enjoyed more of these beauties at home than they 
do in the mines and smoke-infested atmosphere of the indus- 
trial American cities. It is true that they earn more money 
here in dollars and cents; but they work harder for it and 
sometimes under the most cruel taskmasters. 

Teaching aliens the English language, American customs, 
ideals, political institutions and history, will, of course, go a 
great way in making them formal Americans, and, in some 
cases, it may awaken in them a love for their new home ; but 
it is indispensably necessary that in their daily contact with 



134 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

the older Americans they see that these ideals are put into 
practice. They have a very high idea of Americanism, and 
they scrutinize very critically the conduct of the Americans 
with whom they come into contact, to see whether it squares 
with these ideals. They watch the manner in which the laws 
are enforced by the officials, and compare it with the way in 
which they are enforced in their native land ; and, if they find 
out that the Americans do not practice what they preach, 
that the administration of public affairs is not essentially dif- 
ferent here from what they know it to be at home, their 
opinion of America is not exalted. They look upon all the 
loud protestations as bluff and hypocrisy, and no amount of 
Americanization work will change their views. They are on 
trial here, but they also put the Americans to a test. 

This Americanization work must be looked upon as the 
molding of human souls. When men's habits of thought and 
action have become fixed by age, when they have lost their 
youthful plasticity, to recast their souls into predetermined 
molds without subjecting them first to the gentle heat of sym- 
pathy is like forging cold steel into new shapes. It can be 
done, but it requires enormous energy and the results are 
never as satisfactory as when the steel is first heated into a 
flux and then cast. 

If Americanization is to accomplish its purpose, — the amal- 
gamation of all the races and nationalities that inhabit the 
United States into one nation, the transformation of the 
aliens into one hundred per cent. Americans, — if it is to be 
beneficial and not harmful, it must be looked upon as a spir- 
itual regeneration. Naturalization makes a citizen out of an 
alien ; learning the English language makes him more efficient 
both for good and evil; conformity to American habits and 
customs wipes out social differences ; knowledge of American 
institutions and laws enables him to live up to them or to 
break them consciously; but none of these nor all combined 
will make him an enthusiastic American unless his heart has 
been alienated from his mother country and his affections 
transferred to his adopted home. Not until the alien will 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 35 

love America above all, not until he will boast of it and 
defend its faults, can he be considered a true American. And 
he will do neither unless he has placed America above his 
mother country in his estimation. This means a re-birth in 
his soul. 



I36 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



ENRICO C. SARTORIO 

"The Social and Religious Life of Italians in America/' by Enrico 
C. Sartorio, is written from the viewpoint of one who came as a 
foreigner to America when he was already a young man. It aims 
to show how a foreigner really feels. In the words of Dean George 
Hodges, who writes the Introduction to the book, it "is a timely 
revelation of the width and depth of a racial gulf whicn must first 
be bridged and then filled. His suggestions as to the accomplishing 
of this necessary work are definite and practical inferences from his 
own successful experience." 

Mr. Sartorio studied at the Cambridge Episcopal Theological 
School and has since been successfully engaged in pastoral work in 
the city of Boston. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 37 



PATRONIZING THE FOREIGNER 

Among certain people there still exists the old prejudice 
that there must be something the matter with a foreigner. 
Exclusiveness on one side, loneliness on the other, do not help 
to interpret American life in the right spirit to the foreigner. 
If educated Italians thus do not know the real America, you 
can easily imagine what the immigrant's conception of 
America may be. My barber, who has been in this country 
twenty-eight years, was dumbfounded when I told him the 
other day that six people out of seven in America are Protes- 
tant. The poor fellow had gone about for twenty-eight years 
tipping his hat to every church, thinking that they were all 
Roman Catholic churches. I have found over and over again 
Italian couples living together in the belief that they were 
husband and wife, because they misunderstood American law. 
They had been told that in America a civil marriage was as 
valid as a religious one, so they went to the City Hall, and by 
going through the process of answering questions in taking out 
the marriage license, they thought they had been married and 
went happily home to live together as husband and wife. An 
Italian tried to explain to me the meaning of Thanksgiving 
Day. "You see," he said, "the word explains itself, 'Tacchins- 
giving Day' " ; "tacchin" meaning turkey in Italian, it was, 
according to this man, the day on which Americans gave away 
turkeys. 

And what opportunity has an immigrant to know this 
country when he sees America only at its worst? Through 
the gum-chewing girls whom he meets in factories, through 
the hard-drinking and hard-swearing "boss" who orders him 
about, through the dubious type of youth whom he meets 
at the saloon and in the dance hall, through the descriptions 
given in Italian newspapers and by cheap orators he comes 
to know America. Add to that poor wages, quarters in the 
slums, policemen, car conductors and ushers who laugh at 
him when he asks for information, "bosses" who claim a fee 



138 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

for securing him a job, and the sweet names of "Dago" and 
"Guinea" by which the supposed American thinks himself en- 
titled to call him, and you can imagine what a delightful 
feeling the average Italian has toward this country. 

Where does the fault lie? In prejudice and indifference, 
and in the spirit of patronage. Americans who judge by ap- 
pearances, who have not travelled in Italy or studied modern 
Italian life, scornfully turn away from the Italian immigrant 
because he is not as clean-shaven or as well-kempt as the 
American workingman. Other Americans do not concern 
themselves with foreigners. They have a vague knowledge 
that there is somewhere, in some God-forsaken corner of the 
city, a foreign population, and that is all. Still others take a 
sentimental view of the matter ; they have somewhat the feel- 
ing that existed in the bosom of an Irishwoman, a neighbor 
of mine. On Saturday night, — she was always affectionate 
on that special night, — she would wipe her eyes and say, 
"Thim poor Eyetalians." This kind of person means well, 
but generally has zeal without knowledge. 

A lady of refinement, born in a leading city of Italy, mar- 
ried to an Italian Protestant minister who is now at the head 
of an important religious movement in Italy, one day received 
the following letter: — 

"Dear Madam : 

"We are going to have a bazaar for the benefit of Italians. 
Please come to help us, dressed in the national costume that 
you used to wear in Italy/' 

A son of a leading lawyer of Naples came to this country 
and was soon holding a fine position and making a good living. 
He met at church an American lady, who told him that she 
would be very glad to see him the next day at her house. At 
the appointed hour our young gentleman went there and 
handed his card to the servant. "Oh, yes," she said, "the 
lady gave me something for you," and she thrust into his 
hand a dilapidated suitcase and a note. The note read : — 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 39 

"Dear Sir: 

"I have been called away suddenly, but my maid will give 
you the article which I intended to present to you in asking 
you to call. As I no longer have use for this suitcase, per- 
haps it would serve you on your next trip to Italy. 

"Trusting to see you at church next Sunday, 
"Sincerely yours, 



On another occasion an Italian minister was sent to a new 
field. A few days after he had settled down he had a tele- 
phone call from the wife of a minister of the town, who 
invited him to call at her house. At the appointed hour he 
went and was met by the servant, who gave him a newspaper 
bundle. The young man protested, saying that he had come 
to call in response to an invitation. The servant went up- 
stairs, but came back, saying there was no mistake, that the 
lady wished that given to him. On reaching home he found 
that the contents consisted of cast-ofl: clothing for his children. 
He bought a handsome edition of an Italian book for children, 
translated into English, and sent it with his regards to the 
patronizing lady. 



140 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 

There should be, in the large foreign colonies, organized 
lectures, clubs, stereopticon lectures, distribution of informa- 
tion, both in Italian and in English, to explain and to instruct 
in regard to American history, laws, institutions, and ideals. 
There should be free courses on a university extension plan 
for Italian professional men, with a view to preparing them 
to expound to their people in the right way the principles 
and standards of American life. A regular and carefully 
carried out campaign should be started in the Italian news- 
papers, with well-written articles by leading men on the 
subject of American life; and a careful censorship of Italian 
newspapers should be established to challenge every article 
that is unduly depreciatory of America. 

Churches should be centres where American volunteers of 
the best kind can in deed and word represent their country 
to the foreigner. Churches furnish a good means to bring 
about Americanization. Italians are apt to move from place 
to place, and those who become attached to Evangelical 
churches, besides the good which they eventually get in their 
own churches, are also brought into contact with American 
congregations, who by their example initiate them into the 
ways of American life. 

A campaign to enlighten the immigrant as to his duties 
towards his new country should be started on a somewhat 
different basis from those already tried. The immigrant is 
often made to feel how great the material advantage is for 
him in becoming an American citizen, and thus is trained 
to enter into American public and political life in a mercenary 
spirit. When I applied for citizenship papers, I received this 
letter from the Bureau of Naturalization, Washington, 
D.C. :— 

"Dear Sir: 

"You have just filed your petition for naturalization 
to become a citizen of the United States, and because 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH I4I 

of this the United States Bureau of Naturalization is sending 
this letter to you, as it desires to show you how you can be- 
come an American citizen. It also wants to help you to get 
a better position that pays you more money for your work. 
In order to help you better yourself it has sent your name to 
the public schools in your city, and the superintendent of 
those schools has promised to teach you the things which you 
should know to help you to get a better position. If you will 
go to the public school building nearest where you live the 
teacher will tell you what nights you can go to school and 
the best school for you to go to. You will not be put in a 
class with boys and girls, but with grown people. It will 
not cost you anything for the teaching which you will receive 
in the school, and it will help you get a better job and also 
make you able to pass the examination in court when you 
come to get your citizen's papers. 

"You should call at the schoolhouse as soon as you receive 
this letter so that you may start to learn and be able to get a 
better job as soon as possible. 

"Very truly yours, 

N. N." 

As you see, four times there occurs in this letter the exhor- 
tation to become a citizen and to learn the English language 
in order to get "a better job." The letter contains not a 
single appeal to higher motives nor a reference to the duties 
and responsibilities of American citizenship, yet it is sent to 
every foreigner who applies for citizenship. I think a letter 
of this kind is demoralizing. I wonder whether America is 
better off for exhorting foreigners to become citizens from 
such motives, or whether it would not be more desirable to 
instruct immigrants carefully on the altruistic side as to the 
duty of sharing the responsibilities of American life. 

It may be worth mentioning that thirty years of residence 
in the city of Rome is required of any man, even of Italian 
birth, in order to become a Roman citizen. 

Human nature, fortunately, is always longing for an appeal 
to its best side. I accompanied a friend when the American 



142 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

citizenship was granted to him. The judge, a man with a 
fine, clean-cut face, turned toward the candidates — there 
were about a hundred in the room — and told the story of the 
Pilgrim Fathers who, although starved and in great distress, 
refused the opportunity of going back to England, where re- 
ligious and political freedom was denied them. The words 
were to me an inspiration, and in glancing around I saw the 
faces of those present light up and show signs of emotion. 
Big Irishmen, heavy-faced Slavs, small, dried-up Jews, dark 
Italians, small-headed Greeks, I could see in the eyes of them 
all the light of men who were seeing a vision. The appeal to 
the best there is in man should be the leading thought in edu- 
cating immigrants to a desire for American citizenship. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 43 



OTTO HERMANN KAHN 

Otto H. Kahn was born at Mannheim, Germany, February 21, 
1867. His father had emigrated to the United States in 1848, where 
he became a naturalized citizen, returning to Germany ten years 
later. The son was educated in Germany and served one year in 
the German army. He then learned banking, and for five years was 
with the London branch of the Deutsche Bank. In 1893 he came to 
the United States, where he became connected with the banking 
house of Speyer & Co., and later with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. 

During the Great War Mr. Kahn delivered several patriotic 
speeches which were collected under the title, "Right Above Race." 

The following excerpt is part of an address given at Carnegie 
Institute, Pittsburgh, April 24, 1919. 



144 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



CAPITAL AND LABOR— A FAIR DEAL 

We have often heard it said recently — it has become rather 
the fashion to say it — that the rulership of the world will 
henceforth belong to labor. I yield to no one in my respect 
and sympathy for labor, or in my cordial and sincere support 
of its just claims. The structure of our institutions cannot 
stand unless the masses of workmen, farmers, indeed all large 
strata of society, feel that under and by these institutions 
they are being given a square deal within the limits, not of 
Utopia, but of what is sane, right and practicable. 

But the rulership of the world will and ought to belong 
to no one class. It will and ought to belong neither to labor 
nor to capital, nor to any other class. It will, of right and 
in fact, belong to those of all classes who acquire title to it 
by talent, hard work, self-discipline, character and service. 

He is no genuine friend or sound counselor of the people 
nor a true patriot who recklessly, calculatingly or ignorantly 
raises or encourages expectations which cannot or which ought 
not to be fulfilled. 

We must deal with all these things with common sense, 
mutual trust, with respect for all, and with the aim of guid- 
ing our conduct by the standard of liberty, justice and human 
sympathy. But we must rightly understand liberty. We 
must resolutely oppose those who in their impatient grasping 
for unattainable perfection would make of liberty a raging 
and destructive torrent instead of a majestic and fertilizing 
stream. 

Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it 
demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the 
reality of things, of the practicable and attainable, and a 
realization of the fact that there are laws of nature and of 
economics which are immutable and beyond our power to 
change. 

Nothing in history is more pathetic than the record of the 
instances when one or the other of the peoples of the world 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 45 

rejoicingly followed a new lead which it was promised and 
fondly believed would bring it to freedom and happiness, 
and then suddenly found itself, instead, on the old and only 
too well-trodden lane which goes through suffering and tur- 
moil to disillusionment and reaction. 

I suppose most of us when we were twenty knew of a 
short cut to the millennium, and were impatient, resentful 
and rather contemptuous of those whose fossilized prejudices 
or selfishness, as we regarded them, prevented that short cut 
from becoming the high road of humanity. 

Now that we are older, though we know that our eyes 
will not behold the millennium, we should still like the 
nearest possible approach to it; but we have learned that no 
short cut leads there, and that anybody who claims to have 
found one is either an impostor or self-deceived. 

Among those wandering signposts to Utopia we find and 
recognize certain recurrent types : — 

There are those who, in the fervor of their world-improv- 
ing mission, discover and proclaim certain cure-alls for the 
ills of humanity, which they fondly and honestly believe to 
be new and unfailing remedies, but which, as a matter of 
fact, are hoary with age, having been tried on this old globe 
of ours at one time or another, in one of its parts or another, 
long ago, — tried and found wanting and discarded after sad 
disillusionment. 

There are the spokesmen of sophomorism rampant, strut- 
ting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously 
and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental 
processes and sane progress. 

There are the sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant and 
cocksure "advanced thinkers," claiming leave to set the world 
by the ears, and with their strident and ceaseless voices to 
drown the views of those who are too busy to indulge in 
much talking. 

There are the self-seeking demagogues and various related 
types, and finally there are the preachers and devotees of 
liberty run amuck, who in fanatical obsession would place a 
visionary and narrow class interest and a sloppy international- 



I46 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

ism above patriotism, and with whom class hatred and envy 
have become a ruling passion. They are perniciously, cease- 
lessly and vociferously active, though constituting but a small 
minority of the people, and though every election and other 
test has proved, fortunately, that they are not representative 
of labor, either organized or unorganized. 

Among these agitators and disturbers who dare clamor- 
ously to assail the majestic and beneficent structure of Ameri- 
can traditions, doctrines and institutions there are some, far 
too many, indeed — I say it with deep regret, being myself of 
foreign birth — who are of foreign parentage or descent. With 
many hundreds of thousands they or their parents came to 
our free shores from lands of oppression and persecution. 
The great republic generously gave them asylum and opened 
wide to them the portals of her freedom and her opportun- 
ities. 

The great bulk of these newcomers have become loyal and 
enthusiastic Americans. Most of them have proved them- 
selves useful and valuable elements in our many-rooted popu- 
lation. Some of them have accomplished eminent achieve- 
ments in science, industry and the arts. Certain of the qual- 
ities and talents which they contribute to the common stock 
are of great worth and promise. 

When the great test of the war came, the overwhelming 
majority of them rang wholly and finely true. The casualty 
lists are eloquent testimony to the patriotic devotion of "the 
children of the crucible," doubly eloquent because many of 
them fought against their own kith and kin. 

But some there are who have been blinded by the glare of 
liberty as a man is blinded who, after long confinement in 
darkness, comes suddenly into the strong sunlight. Blinded, 
they dare to aspire to force their guidance upon Americans 
who for generations have walked in the light of liberty. 

They have become drunk with the strong wine of freedom, 
these men who until they landed on America's coasts had 
tasted little but the bitter water of tyranny. Drunk, they 
presume to impose their reeling gait upon Americans to whom 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 147 

freedom has been a pure and refreshing fountain for a century 
and a half. 

Brooding in the gloom of age-long oppression, they have 
evolved a fantastic and distorted image of free government. 
In fatuous effrontery they seek to graft the growth of their 
stunted vision upon the splendid and ancient tree of Ameri- 
can institutions. 

Admitted in generous trust to the hospitality of America, 
they grossly violate not only the dictates of common gratitude, 
but of those elementary rules of respect and consideration 
which immemorial custom imposes upon the newcomer or 
guest. They seek, indeed, to uproot the foundations of the 
yery house which gave them shelter. 

We will not have it so, we who are Americans by birth or 
by adoption. We reject these impudent pretentions. By all 
means, let us move forward and upward, but let us proceed 
by the chart of reason, experience and tested American prin- 
ciples and doctrines, and let us not entrust our ship to dema- 
gogues, visionaries or shallow sentimentalists who most as- 
suredly would steer it on the rocks. 

When you once leave the level road of Americanism to 
set foot upon the incline of Socialism, it is no longer in your 
power to determine where you will stop. It is an axiom only 
too well attested by the experience of the past, that the prin- 
cipal elements of the established order of civilization (of 
which the institution of private property is one) are closely 
interrelated. If you tolerate grave infringement upon any of 
these elements, all history shows that you will have laid open 
to assault the foundations of personal liberty, of orderly pro- 
cesses of government, of justice and tolerance, as well as the 
institution of marriage, the sanctity of the home, and the 
principles and practices of religion. 

The strident voices of the fomenters of unrest do not cause 
me any serious apprehension, but we must not sit silently by, 
we must not look on inactively. Where there are grievances 
to redress, where there are wrongs existing, we must all 
aid in trying to right them to the best of our conscience and 
ability. 



I48 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

To the extent that social and economic institutions, how- 
ever deep and ancient their roots, may be found to stand in 
the way of the highest achievable level of social justice and 
the widest attainable extension of opportunity, welfare and 
contentment, they will have to submit to change. And the 
less obstructive and stubborn, the more broad-minded, co-op- 
erative, sympathetic and disinterested those who pre-eminently 
prospered under the old conditions will prove themselves in 
meeting the spirit of the new day and the reforms which it 
may justly call for, the better it will be both for them and 
for the community at large. 

But to the false teaching and the various pernicious 
"isms" with which un-Americans, fifty per cent. Americans 
or anti-Americans are flooding the country, we must give 
battle through an organized, persistent, patient, nationwide 
campaign of education, of information, of sane and sound 
doctrine. The masses of the American people want what is 
right and fair, but they "want to be shown." They will 
not simply take our word for it that because a thing is so and 
has always been so, therefore it should remain so. They do 
not mean to stand still. They want progress. They have no 
use for the standpatter and reactionary. 

Even before the war a great stirring and ferment was go- 
ing on in the land. The people were groping, seeking for a 
new and better condition of things. The war has intensified 
that movement. It has torn great fissures in the ancient 
structure of our civilization. To restore it will require the 
co-operation of all patriotic men of sane and temperate views, 
whatever may be their occupation or calling or political affili- 
ations. 

It cannot be restored just as it was before. The building 
must be rendered more habitable and attractive to those whose 
claim for adequate houseroom cannot be left unheeded, either 
justly or safely. Some changes, essential changes, must be 
made. I have no fear of the outcome and of the readjustment 
which must come. I have no fear of the forces of freedom 
unless they be ignored, repressed or falsely or selfishly led. 

Changes the American people will make as their needs be- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 149 

come apparent, improvements they welcome, the greatest at- 
tainable well-being for all those under our national roof-tree is 
their aim. They will strive to realize what formerly were 
considered unattainable ideals. But they will do all that in 
the American way of sane and orderly progress — and in no 
other. 

Whatever betide in European countries, this nation will 
not be torn from its ancient moorings. Against foes within, 
no less than against enemies without, the American people 
will ever know how to preserve and protect the splendid 
structure of light and order, which is the treasured inheri- 
tance of all those who rightfully bear the name Americans, 
whatever their race and origin. 



150 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



MARCUS ELI RAVAGE 

The story of the Rumanian immigrant, Marcus E. Ravage, was 
published in 1917 under the title, "An American in the Making." 
The most significant steps in his transformation from alien to 
American seem to have been his experiences as a sweat-shop worker 
and as a student at the University of Missouri. It has sometimes 
been thought that the immigrant who wishes to find the real America 
should go West. At any rate Ravage is not the only one who has 
felt the stimulus of the free and democratic spirit among the people 
of the Great Plains. We have heard much in times past of an 
exchange of professors between the United States and Europe. One 
wonders whether a more liberal exchange both of professors and 
students between our larger and smaller, our Eastern and Western 
and Northern and Southern, and our metropolitan and our rural in- 
stitutions of higher learning might not be beneficial to the intellectual 
life of the colleges and universities and also, by helping to eradicate 
provincialism and sectionalism, to greater and more abiding national 
unity. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 151 



THE NEW IMMIGRATION 

Oh, if I could show you America as we of the oppressed 
peoples see it ! If I could bring home to you even the smallest 
fraction of this sacrifice and this upheaval, the dreaming and 
the strife, the agony and the heartache, the endless disap- 
pointments, the yearning and the despair, — all of which must 
be ours before we can make a home for our battered spirits 
in this land of yours. Perhaps if we be young we dream of 
riches and adventure, and if we be grown men we may merely 
seek a haven for our outraged human souls and a safe retreat 
for our hungry wives and children. Yet however aggrieved 
we may feel toward our native home, we cannot but regard 
our leaving it as a violent severing of the ties of our life, and 
look beyond toward our new home as a sort of glorified exile. 
So, whether we be young or old, something of ourselves we 
always leave behind in our hapless, cherished birthplaces. 
And the heaviest share of our burden inevitably falls on the 
loved ones that remain when we are gone. We make no 
illusions for ourselves. Though we may expect wealth, we 
have no thought of returning. It is farewell forever. We 
are not setting out on a trip ; we are emigrating. Yes, we are 
emigrating, and there is our experience, our ordeal, in a nut- 
shell. It is the one-way passport for us every time. For 
we have glimpsed a vision of America, and we start out re- 
solved that, whatever the cost, we shall make her our own. 
In our heavy-laden hearts we are already Americans. In our 
own dumb way we have grasped her message to us. 

Yes, we immigrants have a real claim on America. Every 
one of us who did not grow faint-hearted at the start of the 
battle, and has stuck it out, has earned a share in America 
by the ancient right of conquest. We have had to subdue 
this new home of ours to make it habitable, and in conquer- 
ing it we have conquered ourselves. We are not what we 
were when you saw us landing from the Ellis Island ferry. 
Our own kinsfolk do not know us when they come over. We 
sometimes hardly know ourselves. 



152 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WHITINGS 



WHAT COLLEGE LIFE IN THE WEST DID 
FOR AN IMMIGRANT 

ACQUIRING A SENSE OF HUMOR 

On the whole, then, it looked as if I might yet work out 
my salvation if only those barbarians would leave me to my- 
self. But it was not in them to do that. They seemed deter- 
mined on disturbing my peace of mind. They were devoting, 
I honestly believe, all their spare thoughts and all their in- 
ventive genius to thinking up ways of making me uncom- 
fortable. One young gentleman, still reminiscent of my 
ignorance of rural things, made up a tale of how I went to 
get a job on a farm, and proceeded to relate it at the table. 
"The farmer gave Max a pail and a stool and sent him 
out to milk the cow. About an hour later, when the old boy 
failed to show up with the stuff, Reuben went out to see what 
was the trouble. He found his new assistant in a fierce pickle. 
His clothes were torn and his hands and face were bleeding 
horribly. 'What in heck is the matter?' asked the farmer. 
'Oh, curse the old cow!' said Max, 'I can't make her sit on 
that stool.' ' A burst of merriment greeted the climactic 
ending, although the yarn was a trifle musty; and the most 
painful part of it was that I must laugh at the silly thing my- 
self. 

It was not at all true, as one of my numerous room-mates 
tried to intimate, that I shunned baths. I was merely con- 
servative in the matter. One day, however, he had the indeli- 
cacy to ask me the somewhat personal question whether I 
ever took a bath; and I told him rather sullenly, that I did 
once in a while. Some time later I overheard him repeat the 
dialogue to the other men in the house and provoking shouts 
of laughter. It puzzled me to see where the joke was, until 
I learned that these fellows were taking a shower-bath at the 
gymnasium every day. It seemed to me that that was running 
a good thing into the ground. Again, I noticed that my 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 153 

room-mates were making a great show of their tooth- 
brushes. They used them after every meal and before retir- 
ing — as the advertisements say — and always with an unneces- 
sary amount of splash and clatter. At home I had been 
taught to keep my mouth and teeth clean without all this 
fuss. Nevertheless, I thought that I would get a brush and 
join in the drill. After that the other brushes became notice- 
ably quiet. 

And then, of course, there was the institution of the prac- 
tical joke. On April ist there was soap in the pie. If you 
got in late to a meal, it was wise to brush your chair and 
"pick your bites," if any bites were left. If not, there was no 
telling what you might swallow or sit on. More than once 
I tasted salt in my water and pepper in my biscuits. I seemed 
to have been marked from the first as a fit subject for these 
pranks. 

On Hallowe'en a squad of cadets commanded by a corporal 
entered my room and ordered me to get into my uniform, 
shoulder my gun, and proceed to the gymnasium, which, ac- 
cording to the order read, the commandant assigned me to 
guard against stragglers. I guarded through a whole un- 
eventful night. Toward morning the captain of the football 
team, who had a room in the gymnasium, returned from a 
party. I ordered him to halt and give the password. He 
smiled and tried to enter. I made a lunge for him, and 
would have run my bayonet through him if he had not begun 
to laugh. "Go on home, you poor boy," he said. "They 
pull that stunt off every year. Poor joke, I think." The 
next day my table-mates tried to jolly me about it. They 
said I would be court-martialed as a deserter from duty. I 
got angry, and that made them all the more hilarious. Then 
a great, strapping fellow named Harvey spoke up. "Be still, 
you galoots," he said to them; and then to me, "For gosh 
sake, fellow, be human!" I tried a long time to figure out 
what he meant by "human," and for the rest of my college 
career I strove to follow his advice. It was the first real 
hint I had got on what America, through her representa- 



154 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

tives in Missouri, was expecting of me. Harvey became my 
first American friend. 



THE ROMANCE OF READJUSTMENT 

So to New York I went, and lived through the last and 
the bitterest episode in the romance of readjustment. Dur- 
ing that whole strenuous year, while I was fighting my battle 
for America, I had never for a moment stopped to figure the 
price it was costing me. I had not dreamed that my mere 
going to Missouri had opened up a gulf between me and the 
world I had come from, and that every step I was taking 
toward my ultimate goal was a stride away from everything 
that had once been mine, that had once been myself. Now, 
no sooner had I alighted from the train than it came upon 
me with a pang that that one year out there had loosened 
ties that I had imagined were eternal. 

There was Paul faithfully at the ferry, and as I came off 
he rushed up to me and threw his arms around me and kissed 
me affectionately. Did I kiss him back? I am afraid not. 
He took the grip out of my hand and carried it to the Brook- 
lyn Bridge. Then we boarded a car. I asked him where we 
were going, and he said, mysteriously, "To Harry's." A 
surprise was awaiting me, apparently. As we entered the 
little alley of a store in the Italian quarter, I looked about 
me and saw no one. But suddenly there was a burst of 
laughter from a dozen voices, a door or two opened violently, 
and my whole family was upon me, — brothers, a new sister- 
in-law, cousins of various degrees, some old people, a few 
children. They rushed me into the apartment behind the 
store, pelting me with endearments and with questions. The 
table was set as for a Purim feast. There was an odor of 
pot-roasted chicken, and my eye caught a glimpse of chopped 
eggplant. As the meal progressed, my heart was touched by 
their loving thoughtfulness. Nothing had been omitted, — 
not even the red wine and the Turkish peas and rice. Harry 
and every one else kept on urging me to eat. "It's a long time 
since you have had a real meal," said my sister-in-law. How 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 155 

true it was ! But I felt constrained, and ate very little. Here 
were the people and the things I had so longed to be with; 
but I caught myself regarding them with the eyes of a West- 
ern American. Suddenly — at one glance, as it were — I 
grasped the answer to the problem that had puzzled me so 
long ; for here in the persons of those dear to me I was seeing 
myself as those others had seen me. 

I went about revisiting old scenes, and found that every- 
thing had changed in my brief absence. My friends were 
not the same; the East Side was not the same. They never 
would be the same. What had come over them? My kins- 
folk and my old companions looked me over and declared that 
it was I who had become transformed. I had become soberer. 
I carried myself differently. There was an unfamiliar reserve, 
something mingled of coldness and melancholy, in my eye. My 
very speech had a new intonation. It was more incisive, but 
less fluent, less cordial, they thought. Perhaps so. At any 
rate, while my people were still dear to me, and always 
would be dear to me, the atmosphere about them repelled me. 
If it was I who had changed, then, as I took in the little 
world I had emerged from, I could not help telling myself 
that the change was a salutary one. 

While calling at the old basement bookshop on East Broad- 
way I suddenly heard a horrible wailing and lamenting on 
the street. A funeral procession was hurrying by, followed 
by several women in an open carriage. Their hair was flying, 
their faces were red with weeping, their bodies were swaying 
grotesquely to the rhythm of their violent cries. The oldest 
in the group continued mechanically to address the body in 
the hearse: "Husband dear, upon whom have you left us? 
Upon whom, husband dear?" A young girl facing her in 
the vehicle looked about in a terrified manner, seized every 
now and then the hand of her afflicted mother, and tried to 
quiet her. The frightful scene, with its tragic display, its 
abysmal ludicrousness, its barbarous noise, revolted me. I 
had seen the like of it before, but that was in another life. 
I had once been part of such a performance myself, and the 
grief of it still lingered somewhere in my motley soul. But 



I56 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

now I could only think of the affecting simplicity, the quiet, 
unobtrusive solemnity of a burial I had witnessed the previous 
spring in the West. 

The afternoon following my arrival I flew uptown to see 
Esther. She waved to me and smiled as I approached — she 
had been waiting on the "stoop." As she shook my hand in 
her somewhat masculine fashion, she took me in with a glance, 
and the first thing she said was: "What a genteel person 
you have become! You have changed astonishingly." "Do 
you think so?" I asked her. "I am afraid I haven't. At least 
they do not think so in Missouri." Then she told me that she 
had got only ten points, but that she was expecting three more 
in the fall. She was almost resigned to wait another year be- 
fore entering college. That would enable her to make her total 
requirements, save up a little more money, and get her 
breath. "A woman is not a man, you know," she added. 
"I am beginning to feel the effects of it all. I am really 
exhausted. Geometry has nearly finished me. And mother 
has added her share. She is no longer young, and this 
winter she was ill. I have worried and I have had to send 
money. But let us not talk about my troubles. You are 
full of things to tell me, I know." 

Yes, I had lots I wanted to say, but I did not know where 
to begin ; and the one thing that was uppermost in my mind I 
was afraid to utter lest she should misunderstand and feel in- 
jured and reproach me. I did not want her to reproach me 
on first meeting. I wanted to give myself time as well as 
her. And so we fell into one of those customary long silences, 
and for a while I felt at home again, and reflected that per- 
haps I had been hasty in letting the first poignant reactions 
mislead me. Toward evening Esther remarked that it was 
fortunate I had got to town the day before. If I had no 
other plans, she would take me to a meeting at Clinton Hall 
where MichailofE was to speak on "The Coming Storm in 
America." It would be exciting, she said, and enlightening. 
MichailofI had just come out of prison. He was full of new 
impressions of America and "the system" generally, and one 
could rely on him to tear things open. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 157 

Of course we went, and the assemblage was noisy and 
quarrelsome and intolerant, and the hall was stuffy and 
smelly, and the speaker was honest and fiery and ill-informed. 
He thundered passionately, and as if he were detailing a per- 
sonal grievance against American individualism and the be- 
nighted Americans who allowed a medieval religion and an 
oppressive capitalistic system to mulct and exploit them, and 
referred to a recent article in the Znkunft where the writer 
had weakly admitted the need of being fair even to Chris- 
tianity, and insisted that to be fair to an enemy of humanity 
was to be a traitor to humanity. I listened to it all with an 
alien ear. Soon I caught myself defending the enemy out 
there. What did these folk know of Americans, anyhow? 
MichailofI was, after all, to radicalism what Higgins and 
Moore were to Christianity. His idea of being liberal was to 
tolerate anarchism if you were a socialist and communism if 
you were an individualist. And, as we left the hall, I told 
Esther what I had hesitated to tell her earlier in the evening. 

"Save yourself, my dear friend. Run as fast as you can. 
You will find a bigger and freer world than this. Promise 
me that you will follow me to the West this fall. You will 
thank me for it. Those big, genuine people out in Missouri 
are the salt of the earth. Whatever they may think about the 
problem of universal brotherhood, they have already solved it 
for their next-door neighbors. There is no need of the social 
revolution in Missouri; they have a generous slice of the 
kingdom of heaven." 

Maybe I was exaggerating, but that was how I felt. From 
this distance and from these surroundings Missouri and the 
new world she meant to me was enchanting and heroic. The 
loneliness I had endured, the snubbing, the ridicule, the inner 
struggles — all the dreariness and the sadness of my life in ex- 
ile — had faded out of the picture, and what remained was 
only an idealized vision of the clean manhood, the large 
human dignity, the wholesome, bracing atmosphere of it, 
which contrasted so strikingly with the things around me. 

No, there was no sense in deceiving myself, the East Side 
had somehow ceased to be my world. I had thought a few 



158 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

days ago that I was going home. I had yelled to Harvey 
from the train, as it was pulling out of the station at Colum- 
bia, "I am going home, old man!" But I had merely come 
to another strange land. In the fall I would return to that 
other exile. I was, indeed, a man without a country. 

During that entire summer, while I opened gates on an 
Elevated train in Brooklyn, I tussled with my problem. It 
was quite apparent to me from the first what its solution 
must be. I knew that now there was no going back for me ; 
that my only hope lay in continuing in the direction I had 
taken, however painful it may be to my loved ones and to 
myself. But for a long time I could not admit it to myself. 
A host of voices and sights and memories had awakened 
within me that clutched me to my people and to my past. 

As long as I remained in New York I kept up the tragic 
farce of making Sunday calls on brother Harry and pretend- 
ing that all was as before, that America and education had 
changed nothing, that I was still one of them. I had taken a 
room in a remote quarter of Brooklyn, where there were few 
immigrants, under the pretense that it was nearer to the 
railway barns. But I was deceiving no one but myself. 
Most of my relatives, who had received me so heartily when 
I arrived, seemed to be avoiding Harry's house on Sundays, 
and on those rare occasions when I ran into one of them he 
seemed frigid and ill at ease. Once Paul said to me: "You 
are very funny. It looks as if you were ashamed of the fam- 
ily. You aren't really, are you? You know they said you 
would be when you went away. There is a lot of foolish talk 
about it. Everybody speaks of Harry and me as the doctor's 
brothers. Can't you warm up?" 

I poured out my heart in a letter to Harvey. If a year 
ago I had been told that I would be laying my sorrows and 
my disappointments in my own kindred before any one out 
there, I would have laughed at the idea. But that barbarian 
in Missouri was the only human being, strangely enough, in 
whom I could now confide with any hope of being under- 
stood. I tried to convey to him some idea of the agonizing 
moral experience I was going through. I told him that I 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 159 

was aching to get back to Columbia (how apt the name 
was!), to take up again where I had left off the process of 
my transformation, and to get through with it as soon as 
might be. 

And in the fall I went back — this time a week before col- 
lege opened — and was met by Harvey at the station, just as 
those rural-looking boys had been met by their friends the 
year before. When I reached the campus, I was surprised 
to see how many people knew me. Scores of them came up 
and slapped me on the back and shook hands in their hearty, 
boisterous fashion, and hoped that I had had a jolly summer. 
I was asked to join boarding-clubs, to become a member in 
debating societies, to come and see this fellow or that in his 
room. It took me ofl my feet, this sudden geniality of my 
fellows toward me. I had not been aware how, throughout 
the previous year, the barriers between us had been gradually 
and steadily breaking down. It came upon me all at once. I 
felt my heart going out to my new friends. I had become 
one of them. I was not a man without a country. I was 
an American. 



l60 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



ELIZABETH G. STERN 

The pathos of the readjustment of the foreign-born to the new life 
in America has nowhere been more touchingly presented than in the 
story, "My Mother and I," by Mrs. E. G. Stern, who was born in 
Russian Poland. 

Anyone who has gone on a long journey to make his home far 
from friends and relatives knows something of the pain of separating 
from loved ones; but the pain of such a separation cannot compare 
with the travail of taking a far spiritual journey. That one may 
still have deep reverence for the past, though breaking away from 
it, is the conviction of the author, who says: "And I shall always 
remember that, though my life is now part of my land's, yet, if I am 
truly part of America, it was mother, she who does not understand 
America, who made me so. I wonder if, as the American mother I 
strive to be, I can find a finer example than my own mother !" 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH l6l 



THE PATHOS OF READJUSTMENT 

author's purpose in writing 

The mere writing of this account is a chain, slight, but 
never to be broken ; one that will always bind me to that 
from which I had thought myself forever cut off. For I am 
writing not only of myself. In myself I see one hundred 
thousand young men and women with dark eyes aflame with 
enthusiasm, or blue eyes alight with hope. In myself, as I 
write this record, I see the young girl whose father plucked 
oranges in Italian gardens, the maiden whose mother worked 
on still mornings in the wide fields of Poland, the young 
man whose grandmother toiled in the peat bogs of Ireland. 
I am writing this for myself and for those who, like me, are 
America's foster children, to remind us of them, through 
whose pioneer courage the bright gates of this beautiful land 
of freedom were opened to us, and upon whose tumuli of 
gray and weary years of struggle we, their children, rose to 
our opportunities. I am writing to those sons and daughters 
of immigrant fathers and mothers who are now in America, 
and to those who will come after this devastating war to 
America, and to those who will receive them. 

MARRIAGE AND AFTER 

My friends are now my husband's friends. My home is 
that kind of a home in which he has always lived. With my 
marriage I entered into a new avenue. We have traveled. 
We have worked at tasks we believed in and loved. We have 
our little son. I have not written much to mother about my 
life. My letters have been — just letters. Her own letters 
have been growing briefer these last years. She never came 
to see me in my home. 

It was our little son who was the real cause of her com- 
ing finally. I thought of his birth as the tearing down of 
that barrier that had come between us. Mother was intoxi- 



1 62 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

cated with the delight of her first grandchild, the first child 
of her first child. "Now we understand each other better, 
now that we both are mothers, my daughter," she wrote to 
me, not knowing how much more than she meant to say her 
letters told. I, too, felt that in my own motherhood I saw 
the explanation now for mother's unquestioning, unceasing 
striving and toiling and hoping and planning and achieving 
for her children. "Now I can find the joy of all mothers 
again. I can find my lost young motherhood in your child," 
she wrote. "I am coming to my grandson." 

Mother had not traveled since she took that long trip, 
twenty-five years ago, from Poland to America, to come to 
her husband. And now she was preparing to come from 
Soho — to us, to her first grandchild. We were excited as 
the letters from home told us that they were. Day after 
day, my sisters wrote to us, women came to mother, giving 
her messages to take to me, whom they had known so well 
as a child. They brought mother cake and jellies and wines, 
as if she were about to travel a year instead of one night. My 
aunts came to help her sew her clothes, my uncles came to 
pack her suitcases. It was as if all Soho were coming here 
to us in the person of mother. Father hurried back and forth 
securing mileages, a berth. He carefully explained to mother 
what a berth was, and warned her above all not to forget to 
give the black man, when he gave her her hat, a quarter. My 
sisters wrote such dear letters, describing it all there at home. 

We could hardly wait. Our little boy asked every day for 
"grammy." There came a deluge of telegrams to us, which 
clearly told us the haste and nervousness in the little home in 
Soho, and we knew that mother was on her way to us. 

She came in the morning. She did not stop to kiss me, 
nor to look about her, but as soon as she entered my home 
she cried breathlessly, "Where is my grandchild?" And she 
held him to her, and the tears filled her eyes. "Such a boy! 
But a boy!" she cried. We had written to her that our boy 
was speaking now. She sat down beside him, and she crooned 
love-words to him. 

Son is a friendly little lad. I felt that, if I left them alone 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 63 

together, he and mother would grow close in a day or two. 
I peeped one morning into the nursery. Mother was stand- 
ing, looking dully at the spotless baby cot, the white wicker 
chairs, the little washable rugs on the floor, the gay pictures 
on the white walls. Her worn plump hands were folded one 
upon the other in a gesture that I know. Little son was in a 
corner, gravely building a tower. Little son has been taught 
that he must play without demanding help or attention from 
adults about him, that "son must help himself." In Soho 
little boys are spanked and scolded and carried and physicked 
and loved and fed all day and all night. 

Mother called to little son a quaint love name, and he 
turned to her with his bright smile, understanding her love 
tone. Then he quietly turned away from her to his toys 
again. And mother stood there in that strange white baby 
world which was her grandson's. Perhaps she was think- 
ing of what she had thought to find him, like one of the chil- 
dren of her own young motherhood, dear burdens that one 
bore night and day. She was afraid to touch the crib, to soil 
the spotless rugs. Here was her grandchild, they were to- 
gether, it is true. And her grandchild had no need of her. 
She felt alien, unnecessary. 

I felt the tears in my eyes. I ran in, called son to come to 
play with grammy and mother. He came readily, laugh- 
ingly, speaking his baby phrases that are so adorably like the 
words we adults, his parents, use. I had been anticipating, 
even before she came, how much mother and I would enjoy 
his baby talk. But mother said in a very low voice, "You 
say he speaks, daughter. I do not understand the words he 
means to say now. And — he will never learn — learn my lan- 
guage." 

And mother's first tears fell. 

We had planned for every hour of her visit to us, even 
for the hours of needed rest between whiles. In those rest 
spaces she would come into our living room. She is not 
accustomed to sitting in living rooms. Her life has been a 
life of toil. And our living room is to her as strange a place 
as was to me the first sitting room I saw long ago. 



164 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

She looked with a little smile about her. She glanced at 
the bookcase, filled with books she cannot read, and about 
things she does not know. Finally her gaze rested upon a 
certain place, and my eyes followed hers. There stood the 
old candlesticks which she had known in her father's home 
in Poland, and which had stood in her own kitchen in Soho. 
And there, in my living room stands also, with its bronze 
curves holding autumn leaves — the copper fish pot! "In 
America," said mother quaintly, with a little "crooked smile" 
only on her trembling, questioning lips, "they have all things 
— so different." 

There is no need for mother's pot in my kitchen; it has 
become an emblem of the past, an ornament in my living 
room. Mother cannot understand our manner of cooking, 
the manner I learned away from home. She cannot eat the 
foods we have ; her plate at meals was left almost untouched. 
She does not understand my white kitchen, used only for 
cooking. When she came into my kitchen, my maid asked 
her quickly, eager to please her, pleasantly and respectfully, 
"What can I do for you?" 

So mother went out to the porch, and she looked out upon 
the tree-shaded street. And an infinite loneliness was hers, a 
loneliness at thought of the crowded, homely ghetto street, 
where every one goes about in shirt sleeves, or apron and 
kimono, where every one knows his neighbor, where every 
one speaks mother's speech. 

She cannot understand my friends, nor they her. I am 
the only thing here that is part of her life. I for whom those 
hands of hers are hard and worn, and her eyes weary with the 
stitching of thousands of seams. She helped me to come into 
this house, to reach the quiet peace of this street. And she 
has come to see this place whither she toiled to have me 
come ; and now that she came to see my goal she was afraid, 
lonely. She did not understand. 

There is nothing that we have in common, it may appear, 
this mother of mine, and I, the mother of my sorf. Her life 
has lain always within the four dim walls of her ghetto home. 
And I have books, clubs, social service, music, plays. My 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 65 

motherhood is a privilege and an experience which is mean- 
ingful not only to my son and to me, but to my community. 
In this short visit of hers, for the first time mother saw me as 
that which I had always wished to be, an American woman 
at the head of an American home. But our home is a home 
which, try as I may, we cannot make home to mother. She 
has seen come to realization those things which she helped me 
to attain, and she cannot share, nor even understand, them. 

But there is one thing we have in common, mother and I. 
We have this woman that I am, this woman mother has 
helped me to become. And I shall always remember that, 
though my life is now part of my land's, yet, if I am truly 
part of America, it was mother, she who does not under- 
stand America, who made me so. I wonder if, as the Ameri- 
can mother I strive to be, I can find a finer example than my 
own mother ! 

There are many men and women who have gone, as I 
have, far from that place where we started. When I think 
of them lecturing on the platform, teaching in schools and 
colleges, prescribing in offices, pleading before the bar of law, 
I shall never be able to see them standing alone, I shall 
always see, behind them, two shadowy figures who will stand 
with questioning, puzzled eyes, eyes in which there will be 
love, but no understanding, and always an infinite loneliness. 

For those men and women who are physicians and lawyers 
and teachers and writers, they are young, and they belong to 
America. And they who recede into the shadow, they are 
old, and they do not understand America. But they have 
made their contribution to America — their sons and their 
daughters. 



l66 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



ROBERT M. WERNAER 

Robert Maximilian Wernaer was born in 1865 m Jena, Germany, 
where he received his early education. After coming to the United 
States in 1884, he took a course in law at the Albany Law School, 
and attended Harvard University, from which he received his Ph.D. 
degree in 1903. His studies were continued abroad at Leipzig, 
Heidelberg, Geneva, and Berlin. He was admitted to the Bar in 
1889 an d practiced law in Brooklyn and New York. Later he was 
instructor in German at the universities of Wisconsin and Harvard, 
being also lecturer on German literature at the latter institution in 
1908. 

In 1917 there was published his stirring, patriotic poem, "The 
Soul of America," which leaves no doubt concerning his stand on 
the great question of the hour. The parts reprinted here are taken 
chiefly from the opening cantos of the poem. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 67 

THE SOUL OF AMERICA* 

America! Land of forests and prairies, 
Land of races and peoples, 

Land of freedom and tolerance, 

Looked-for haven of the nations of the world! 

To you I came, and you I adopted. 

1 have infolded you as a child infolds its mother. 
I say to you: "My mother!" 

I love you because you hold the torch of liberty in your outstretched 

hand. 
I love you because your constitution speaks of the people as the rulers. 
(I am a man — I salute you, brother!) 
I love you because you are not governed by a king. 
I love you because princes and nobles are not met on your streets — 
The dignity of man is not lowered. 
I love you because of the true red mixture of human blood that flows 

in your veins. 
Blessed are the dreams of the first settlers! . 

I love you because, in the beginning of your history, 
You gathered together your people ; 
You girded your loins ; 
You armed yourself with weapons of steel; 
And you fought. 
You fought for liberty; 
You fought for independence; 

divine f reemanship ! 
You fought for democracy; 

You fought for nature's own laws; 

And you won. 

Blessed are the noble men in whom the dreams of our fathers stiB 

live! 
And since those days, the peoples came from the ends of the earth, 
And you increased; 
And your stars now count forty and eight. 

1 love you because of what you did in the middle of the nineteenth 

century, — ■ 
You liberated some millions of dark-colored people living amomg 

you; 
You emancipated them. 

I love you because you gave your blood for the Cubans. 
You fought for them, but took no soil. 
You made them free. 
The Filipinos will be free also. 

*Copyright, 1917, by The Four Seas Company. By permissio* wl 
the. Duiblishftrs. 



1 68 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

I love [you] because you are a nation of givers. 
Above all else, I love you because of your Soul, 
The infinite vistas opening out from your Soul. 
Blessed be that Soul ! 

And since I love you, 

Since ray life is entwined with your life, 

My ideals with your ideals, — 

Gray matter and red blood have sealed the pledge, — 

I wish you to guard the beacon fires lit on your mountains, 

I wish you to grow, 

And increase in the strength of body, 

In the strength of Soul, 

The things unseen, 

Your birthrights, O America! 

Ill 

America, my country! 

Brothers all! 

What is that Liberty of which you sing? 

Which impelled the first settlers to seek your soil ? 

For which they offered up their blood? 

Which 3 r ou sent abroad in your calls of love? 

Which brought the nations of the earth to you? 

Singing, singing, singing! 

Which you have stamped upon your documents and silver coins? 

The sunlight spread out over the States ? — 

What is that Liberty? 

You say it is your life-principle. 

Yes: it is your life-principle; 

The igniting spark that keeps your fires, O America! 

That feeds your Soul, your Spirit, your Being: 

As your Liberty is, so is your Soul ; 

As your Soul is, so is your Liberty. 

You are not merely dwellers on this continent; 

You are no longer a province; 

No longer in the leading strings of a parent land. 

Not now! 

You are a new land, — 

New, because of a new era started; 

New, because you are not a land of just one race, 

But a company of races, 

Held together by a secret bond, 

By a sacred bond, 

Sacred as a consecrated altar, 

The link between you and your destiny, — 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 69 

Your very Soul, your Spirit, your Being. 

Are you conscious of that? 

Do you feel it as you feel the pulsing of your heart? 

Do you feel it strike the tablet of your mind as a conviction? 

Do you feel it quiver through your body when the word "American" 

is uttered ? 
What then is Liberty? 
What does the uplifted torch mean? 
The wreath about her brow? 
What is this Soul I am speaking about? 

Brother, ask yourself that question. 

Ask yourself at night in the hour of rest, 

And in the morning when a new day dawns. 

Ask yourself now ! 

For it is the time of a new consecration. 

To-day! To-day! 

Ask yourself a thousand times, 

For America's To-morrow depends upon your answer! 

Yea, the world's To-morrow depends upon your answer! 

IV 

I know a man who years ago 

Departed from his native land, 

With treasures, wife and child; 

And settled in the kingdom of the sea. 

Rich he was, and, in due time, the king made him a lord. 

He was born in America, and had breathed her 

Principle of life, yet never known her Soul ; 

Was born in America, yet had not been American. 

I know a woman of leisure who lived in Paris; 

Ten happy, fleeting years she had spent there ; 

Then she returned to the land of her birth — 

For a visit. 

She made the visit shorter than she had intended; 

She thought of the arts she had left behind ; 

She thought of the boulevards and lighted cafes ; 

She thought of the Countess de C. and her cercle of friends; 

Our streets and cities she no longer liked; 

Our people seemed bourgeois to her; 

Our life was too busy, and fulsome of noise; 

She longed for leisure and fashion; 

She scorned our ways. 

She, too, had not known the Soul of our land, 

Though born under the Stars and Stripes. 

My brothers, there are many of these. 



170 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

VII 

My brother, what is Liberty? 

What is Democracy? 

I feel a quiver run 

Through our nation — 

What is it we have left undone 

In faith and consecration? 

Our faith of old — 

Has it grown cold? 

Is it the search for gold 

That made us turn from pledges of the past, 

Forgetful of the things that last? 

To play? 

To chase the shadows in the sun? 

To count the trifles won? 

My brother, 

What is it we have left undone ? 

What is it we must do? 

How can we see things through, 

In this New Age? 

There is the flesh of body, in which the life of man is rooted ; 
There is the light of the soul, which makes that life a child of God. 
There is the flesh of body, in which the life of a people is rooted ; 
There is the light of her soul, which makes that life a nation. 

What is our nation's Soul ? 

America's Light? 

Her entity. as a nation among nations? 

Her Being, I mean, her Heart, the glow 

Of her Spirit whereby she grows; 

Her mind whereby she knows 

Herself; her Entity 

Among the nations, free 

Or bound; — this Soul, do you know? 

My brother, I tell you no new truth, 

Though a deep and wondrous truth. 

You may have forgotten — forgotten it! 

You, who have been here too long — 

My brother, know it again, again! 

Or you, newcomer, no one may have told you — 

Hear me, then ! 

It is a faith, — 

A faith on which hangs all the law and the singer's prophecy; 

Which cuts down to the life-roots of our Being; 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 171 

Which lays bare the red-flowing blood, — the sap of life; 

And the white-shining Light, — the blossoms of life ; 

Which makes us stand before our grave, and face to face with God. 

Blessed are the men of the past who saw the Light, who had tht 

faith! 
It is a faith, — 

The faith that through our democracy, 
A government and a people sprung from American soil, 
Many peoples, peoples sprung from the races of the world — 
Through this democracy — 
The high-held promises that sleep in man, 
Infinite stretches of powers potential, 
Social, intellectual, moral, 
In embryo traced in lines of beauty, 
Can into vital life be quickened, 
Strike deep their roots, 
Fed in this wondrous soil, 
And gather mighty powers of growth, 
Unfolding wing on wing of nascent life, 
Nearing the stature of ideal selfhood 
God has destined they should be, 
Through this democracy, 
Through a democracy of many peoples, 
The great American Experiment, 
The new hope-anointed start, 
A nation in which the people are the rulers, 
A free people of peoples free, 
Living in concord one with another, 
Striving steadfast for a high humanity, 
Reaching out to the ends of the world, 
Making an end of Race for the sake of Man, 
A humanity, great because it is a race of races, 
Great because pledged to advance the statehood of man, 
Crowned with the crown of freedom, 
Won with eyes and ears, and swords and plows, 
And creative brother-will, 

And love for noble deeds, and noble song, and noble art, 
Calling all men "brothers," — 
That is America's Soul ! 
Her Soul in the making. 



172 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

WE MUST BE TRUE 

We must be true, with faith renew 

Our solemn vows, forever true ! 

True as the very prairie grass, 

The woods and fields and soil and mass 

Of rock, which sun and air have wrought, — 

Growing without a thought, 

Truly American! 

True to historic days, the flow 

And national ebb of times ago! 

True to the very drops of life, 

The battles fought, the stress and strife 

Of anguished years to make man free, — 

Loving our Liberty, 

Truly American ! 

True to the Lincoln man, the love-chart 

Of a great impassioned human heart! 

True to the very cry of our Soul 

For better days, the far-out goal 

Of struggling man, — knowing no race, 

Lighted by a brother's face, 

Truly American! 

We must be true, with faith renew 

Our solemn vows, forever true! 

True to the very stars above. 

To truth, to freedom, justice, love 

For right ; yea, unfaltering, — with the brave, 

Ready for a freeman's grave, 

Truly American! 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 73 



ANGELO PATRI 

The country which gave Dante and Garibaldi and Mazzini and 
Madame Montessori to the world saw the birth, in 1877, of Angelo 
Patri, teacher in the public schools of New York City and author 
of "A Schoolmaster of the Great City." This book recounts his 
endeavors to realize his educational ideals. That he has been trium- 
phantly successful does not seem to be entirely to the credit of con- 
temporary pedagogical methods, and his arraignment of much 
current educational theory and practice is as severe as his passionate, 
Christ-like love of childhood is touching and beautiful. The World 
War has convinced educators rather generally of the need of vitaliz- 
ing the work of the schools through contact with life itself, and for 
this none pleads more eloquently than he. 

The following selections under altered titles are taken from chap- 
ters one, seven and eight. 



174 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



AN IMMIGRANT AND HIS FATHER 

I remember sitting with the family and the neighbors' 
families about the fireplace, while father, night after night, 
told us stories of the Knights of the Crusades or recounted 
the glories of the heroes of proud Italy. 

How he could tell a story! His voice was strong and soft 
and soothing, and he had just sufficient power of exaggera- 
tion to increase the attractiveness of the tale. We could see 
the soldiers he told us about pass before us in all their strug- 
gles and sorrows and triumphs. Back and forth he marched 
them into Asia Minor, across Sicily, and into the castles of 
France, Germany and England. We listened eagerly and 
came back each night ready to be thrilled and inspired again 
by the spirit of the good and the great. 

Then came the journey over the sea, and the family with 
the neighbors' families were part of the life of New York. 
We were Little Italy. 

I was eleven before I went to a city school. All the Eng- 
lish I knew had been learned in the street. I knew Italian. 
From the time I was seven I had written letters for the neigh- 
bors. Especially the women folk took me off to a corner and 
asked me to write letters to their friends in Italy. As they 
told me the story, I wrote it down. I thus learned the beat 
of plain folks' hearts. 

My uncle from whom I had learned Italian went back to 
Italy, and I was left without a teacher ; so one day I attached 
myself to a playmate and went to school, — an "American" 
school. I gave my name and my age, and was told to sit in 
a long row of benches with some sixty other children. The 
teacher stood at the blackboard and wrote "March 5, 1887." 
We all read it after her, chanting the singsong with the 
teacher. Each morning we did the same thing; that is, re- 
peated lessons after the teacher. That first day and the sec- 
ond day were alike, and so were the years that followed. "If 
one yard of goods cost three cents, how much will twenty- 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 175 

five yards cost?" If one yard costs three cents, then twenty- 
five yards will cost twenty-five times three cents, or seventy- 
five cents. The explanation could not vary, or it might not 
be true or logical. 

But there was one thing that was impressed more strongly 
than this routine. I had always been a sickly, thin, pale- 
faced child. I did not like to sit still. I wanted to play, to 
talk, to move about. But if I did any of these things, I was 
kept after school as a punishment. This would not do. I 
had to get out of the room, and frequently I endured agonies 
because the teacher would not permit me to leave the room 
whenever I wanted to. Many times I went home sick and 
lay abed. 

Soon I discovered that the boys who sat quietly, looked 
straight ahead and folded their arms behind their backs, and 
even refused to talk to their neighbors, were allowed the 
special privilege of leaving the room for one minute, not 
longer. So I sat still, very still, for hours and hours, so that 
I might have the one minute. Throughout my whole school 
life this picture remains uppermost. I sat still, repeated 
words, and then obtained my minute allowance. 

For ten years I did this, and because I learned words I 
was able to go from the first year of school through the 
last year of college. My illness and the school discipline had 
helped after all. They had made my school life shorter by 
several years than it otherwise might have been. 

The colony life of the city's immigrants is an attempt to 
continue the village traditions of the mother country. In our 
neighborhood there were hundreds of families that had come 
from the same part of Italy. On summer nights they gath- 
ered in groups on the sidewalks, the stoops, the courtyards, 
and talked and sang and dreamed. In winter the men and 
boys built Roman arches out of the snow. 

But gradually the families grew in size. The neighbor- 
hood became congested. A few families moved away. Ours 
was one of them. We began to be a part of the new mass 
instead of the old. The city with its tremendous machinery, 
its many demands, its constant calling, calling, began to take 



176 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

hold. What had been intimate, quaint, beautiful, ceased to 
appeal. 

I went to school, father went to work, mother looked 
after the house. When evening came, instead of sitting 
about the fire, talking and reliving the day, we sat, each in 
his own corner. One nursed his tired bones, another pre- 
pared his lessons for the morrow. The demands of the 
school devoured me; the work world exhausted my father. 
The long evenings of close contact with my home people 
were becoming rare. I was slipping away from my home; 
home was slipping away from me. 

Yet my father knew what he was about. While the 
fathers of most of the boys about me were putting their 
money into business or into their houses, mine put his 
strength, his love, his money, his comforts into making me 
better than himself. The spirit of the crusaders should live 
again in his son. He wanted me to become a priest: I 
wanted to become a doctor. 

During all the years that he worked for me, I worked 
for myself. While his hopes were centred in the family, 
mine were extending beyond it. I worked late into the 
nights, living a life of which my father was not a part. This 
living by myself tended to make me forget, indeed to under- 
value, the worth of my people. I was ashamed sometimes 
because my folk did not look or talk like Americans. 

When most depressed by the feeling of living crudely and 
poorly, I would go out to see my father at work. I would 
see him high up on a scaffold a hundred feet in the air, and 
my head would get dizzy and my heart would rise to my 
throat. Then I would think of him once more as the poet 
story-teller with the strong, soothing voice and the far-off 
visioned eye, and would see why on two-dollar-a-day wages 
he sent me to college. 

Proud of his strength, I would strengthen my moral fibre 
and respond to his dream. Yet not as he dreamed ; for when 
he fell fifty feet down a ladder and was ill for a whole year, 
I went to work at teaching. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 177 



AN IMMIGRANT AND THE CHILDREN 

The schools will change for the better when their life is 
made basically different from what it has been. 

They are pointed in the direction of the fundamentals of 
knowledge, but working with the tools of the classicists. 
They have developed and developed until we find life on one 
side, — that is, outside the school, — and learning on the other 
side, — that is, inside the school. Now the schools must be 
pointed so that life and the school become one. 

To begin with, better school conditions must be provided 
for the youngest children. The first steps in child teaching 
must be sound. The primary years of school must be worth 
while. Unless the basic structure is real, soul satisfying, 
higher education will be halting and futile. The child is en- 
titled to a fine start in his life's journey if he is to have a 
fair chance of carrying his head high and his shoulders 
straight. 

He comes to school a distinct personality. He is joyous, 
spontaneous, natural, free. But from the first day, instead 
of watching, encouraging that personality, the school begins 
to suppress it and keeps up the process year in and year out. 
By and by we begin to search for the individuality that has 
been submerged. We make tempting offers to the student 
in the high school and in the college — we give him better 
teachers, better equipment, greater freedom, more leisure, 
smaller classes, direct experiences. We call upon him to 
stand out, to face the problems of life honestly, squarely, — 
to be himself. How blind we are! First we kill, and then 
we weep for that which we have slain. 

We do not look upon the children as an important eco- 
nomic factor. Children are a problem to the parent and 
teacher, but not to the race. 

Do you raise pigs? The government is a3most tearful in 
its solicitude for their health and welfare. The Agricultural 
Bureau sends you scientific data gathered at great pains and 
expense. But do you raise children? Ah! They are very 



178 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

expensive. And there are so many of them ! One teacher to 
fifty is the best we can do for you. Teachers who are spe- 
cialists in their profession ? Oh, now really ! You know we 
could never afford that. We must pay for high-priced 
teachers for the high schools and upper grades, but for the 
little children — all you want is a pleasant personality that is 
able to teach the rudiments of learning. There's not much 
to do in those grades — just the rudiments, you know. There's 
no disciplining to do there, the children are so easily sup- 
pressed. It's only in the upper grades we have the trouble ! 

Stupid and topsy-turvy! 

We need the scientist, the child specialist, the artist, in 
the first year of school. We need few children to a teacher 
and plenty of space to move about in. 

It's there the teacher should eagerly, anxiously, reverently, 
watch for the little spark of genius, of soul, of individuality, 
and so breathe the breath of life upon it that it can never 
again be crushed or repressed. 

We must spend more money on elementary education if 
the money we now spend on higher education is to bring 
forth results that are commensurate with our national needs. 
We spend fifty dollars a year on the education of a child and 
ten times that amount on the education of a young college 
man. . . . 

Do we really believe in children? Can we say with the 
Roman mother, "These are my jewels"? How long ago is 
it that the state legislature passed a bill enabling the canner- 
ies to employ children and women twelve hours a day ? Fifty 
children to a teacher, adulterated foods, military discipline, 
are not beliefs in children. Enslaving mothers is not a belief 
in children. 

Our belief in children, like our belief in many other good 
things, is mainly a word belief. What we need is a practical 
belief. We are still at the stage where we separate work and 
thought, action and theory, practice and ethics. If we would 
be saved, we must follow the child's way of life. His way is 
the direct way. He learns from contact with the forces 
about him. He feels them, he sees them, he knows what they 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 79 

do to him. He thinks and does and discovers all in one 
continuous flow of energy. 

The child says: "I am of things as they are. I am the 
fighter for the things that ought to be. I was the beginning 
of human progress, and I am the progress of the world. I 
drive the world on. I invent. I achieve, I reform. About 
me is always the glory of mounting. I have no fear of fall- 
ing, of slipping down, down. I have no fear of being lost. 
I am truth. I am reality, and always I question chaos." 

When the child begins to question the wisdom of the 
group, its religion, its literature, its dress, its tastes, its 
method of government, its standard of judgment, that mo- 
ment the group should begin to take heed. It should take 
the child's questioning seriously. When the group fails to 
do this, it gives up its existence, it ceases to grow because it 
looks back, it worships tradition, it makes history in terms of 
the past rather than in terms of the future. 

Belief in evolution is a belief in the child. 

What the race needs is a principle of growth, spiritual 
growth, that can never be denied. Such a principle it will 
find in the child, because the spirit of the child is the one fac- 
tor of the group existence that in itself keeps changing, grow- 
ing. The child is nature's newest experiment in her search 
for a better type, and the race will be strong as it determines 
that the experiment shall be successful. 

We develop national characteristics in accord with our ad- 
herence to a common ideal. We must therefore surrender 
ourselves for the common good, and the common good to 
which we should surrender is epitomized in the child idea. 

I feel that the attitude towards the school and the child is 
the ultimate attitude by which America is to be judged. In- 
deed, the distinctive contribution America is to make to the 
world's progress is not political, economical, religious, but 
educational, the child our national strength, the school as the 
medium through which the adult is to be remade. 

What an ideal for the American people ! 

When my father came to America, he thought of America 
only as a temporary home. He learned little or no Eng- 



l80 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

lish. As the years went by he would say, "It is enough ; my 
children know English." Then more years rolled by. One 
day he came to me and asked me to help him get his citizen- 
ship papers. He and I began reading history together. Month 
after month we worked, laboring, translating, questioning, 
until the very day of his examination. 

That day I hurried home from college to find a smiling, 
happy father. "Did you get them?" I asked. 

"Yes, and the judge wanted to know how I knew the an- 
swers so well, and I told him my son who goes to college 
taught me, and the judge complimented me." 

I have been a part of many movements to Americanize the 
foreigner, but I see that the child is the only one who can 
carry the message of democracy if the message is to be carried 
at all. If the child fails to make the connection between the 
ideals of the school and the fundamental beliefs of the peo- 
ple, there is none other to do it. The children are the chain 
that must bind people together. 

I have told about parents growing because they sought 
growth for their children. I saw them grow through the in- 
itiative of the school. These were tenement dwellers. Would 
this thing hold where the parents are well to do, and the 
streets are clean and music is of the best, and home ideals 
are of the highest and the social life of the neighborhood is 
intimate? Is it still necessary for the school to gather the 
parents about itself? Is it still necessary for the school to 
go out into the community and get the parents to consciously 
work as a group for the children's interest, to consciously 
shape their philosophy of life in conformity with the dynamic 
philosophy that childhood represents ? 

More necessary! If not to save the children, it should be 
done to save the parents. 

No matter who the people are, they need the school as a 
humanizing force, so that they may feel the common interest, 
revive their visions, see the fulfillment of their dreams in 
terms of their children, so that they may be made young once 
more. Americanize the foreigner, nay, through the child let 
us fulfill our destiny and Americanize America. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH l8l 



ANZIA YEZIERSKA 

Anzia Yezierska was born in a Polish province of Russia in the 
year 1886, and migrated, when nine years old, to New York City, 
where she was sent to work in an East Side sweatshop at a dollar 
and a half a week. Her life in America has been a heroic struggle 
for self-expression both in a literary and spiritual sense. 

Since upon every hand one hears the cry that more should be 
required of the immigrants in the way of preparation for citizen- 
ship, in loyalty and in service, it is very fitting that this book of 
selections should close with that touching passage of her story, "How 
I Found America," which sets forth the immigrants' yearning for 
fellowship with native Americans and their passionate desire to 
serve. Will not here be found the two master keys — fellowship and 
service — to the successful accomplishment of the work of American- 
ization; in fact, without which all attempts at Americanization will 
prove futile? 

The writings of the immigrants have hitherto been largely histor- 
ical and sociological in character. Miss Yezierska's work suggests 
the unlimited artistic possibilities of the newer elements in our na- 
tional life, — gifts on which we should not lay violent hands, but 
which we should carefully conserve as a part of the heritage of 
America to the future. It is interesting to note that one of her 
stories was selected by Edward J. O'Brien as the best piece of imagi- 
native writing in short form produced during the year 191 9. 

That part of the story that follows is taken from the issue of The 
Century for November, 1920. The same story in longer and some- 
what different form is found in a volume of her collected writings 
recently published by Houghton Mifflin under the title, "Hungry 
Hearts." 



1 82 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 



HOW I FOUND AMERICA 

Times changed. The sweat-shop conditions that I had 
lived through had become a relic of the past. Wages had 
doubled, tripled, and went up higher and higher, and the 
working day became shorter and shorter. I began to earn 
enough to move my family uptown into a sunny, airy flat 
with electricity and telephone service. I even saved up 
enough to buy a phonograph and a piano. 

My knotted nerves relaxed. At last I had become free 
from the worry for bread and rent, but I was not happy. A 
more restless discontent than ever before ate out my heart. 
Freedom from stomach needs only intensified the needs of my 
soul. 

I ached and clamored for America. Higher wages and 
shorter hours of work, mere physical comfort, were not yet 
America. I had dreamed that America was a place where 
the heart could grow big with living. Though outwardly I 
had become prosperous, life still forced me into an existence 
of mere getting and getting. 

Ach! how I longed for a friend, a real American friend, 
some one to whom I could express the thoughts and feelings 
that choked me! In the Bronx, the uptown ghetto, I felt 
myself farther away from the spirit of America than ever 
before. In the East Side the people had yet alive in their 
eyes the old, old dreams of America, the America that would 
release the age-old hunger to give; but in the prosperous 
Bronx good eating and good sleeping replaced the spiritual 
need for giving. The chase for dollars and diamonds dead- 
ened the dreams that had once brought them to America. 

More and more the all-consuming need for a friend pos- 
sessed me. In the street, in the cars, in the subways, I was 
always seeking, ceaselessly seeking for eyes, a face, the flash 
of a smile that would be light in my darkness. 

I felt sometimes that I was only burning out my heart for 
a shadow, an echo, a wild dream, but I couldn't help it. 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 83 

Nothing was real to me but my hope of rinding a friend. 
America was not America to me unless I could find an 
American that would make America real. 

The hunger of my heart drove me to the night-school. 
Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the 
school there would be education, air, life for my cramped-in 
spirit. I would learn to think, to form the thoughts that 
surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would 
make me articulate. 

I joined the literature class. They were reading "The 
De Coverley Papers." Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank 
in every line with the feeling that any moment I would get 
to the fountain-heart of revelation. Night after night I read 
with tireless devotion. But of what ? The manners and 
customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hundred 
years dead. 

One evening, after a month's attendance, when the class 
had dwindled from fifty to four, and the teacher began 
scolding us who were present for those who were absent, my 
bitterness broke. 

"Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from 
the class? It's because they have too much sense than to 
waste themselves on 'The De Coverley Papers.' Us four 
girls are four fools. We could learn more in the streets. It's 
dirty and wrong, but it's life. What are 'The De Coverley 
Papers?' Dry dust fit for the ash-can." 

"Perhaps you had better tell the principal your ideas of 
the standard classics," she scoffed, white with rage. 

"All right," I snapped, and hurried down to the princi- 
pal's office. 

I swung open the door. 

"I just want to tell you why I'm leaving. I — " 

"Won't you come in?" The principal rose and placed a 
chair for me near her desk. "Now tell me all." She leaned 
forward with an inviting interest. 

I looked up, and met the steady gaze of eyes shining with 
light. In a moment all my anger fled. "The De Coverley 
Papers" were forgotten. The warm friendliness of her face 



184 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN THE WRITINGS 

held me like a familiar dream. I couldn't speak. It was as 
if the sky suddenly opened in my heart. 

"Do go on," she said, and gave me a quick nod. "I want 
to hear." 

The repression of centuries rushed out of my heart. I 
told her everything — of the mud hut in Sukovoly where I 
was born, of the Czar's pogroms, of the constant fear of the 
Cossack, of Gedalyah Mindel's letter, of our hopes in coming 
to America, and my search for an American who would 
make America real. 

"I am so glad you came to me," she said. And after a 
pause, "You can help me." 

"Help you?" I cried. It was the first time that an Ameri- 
can suggested that I could help her. 

"Yes, indeed. I have always wanted to know more of that 
mysterious, vibrant life — the immigrant. You can help me 
know my girls. You have so much to give — n 

"Give — that's what I was hungering and thirsting all 
these years — to give out what's in me. I was dying in the 
unused riches of my soul." 

"I know; I know just what you mean," she said, putting 
her hand on mine. 

My whole being seemed to change in the warmth of her 
comprehension. "I have a friend," it sang itself in me. "I 
have a friend !" 

"And you are a born American?" I asked. There was 
none of that sure, all-right look of the Americans about her. 

"Yes, indeed. My mother, like so many mothers," — and 
her eyebrows lifted humorously whimsical, — "claims we're 
descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, and that one of our lin- 
eal ancestors came over in the Mayflower." 

"For all your mother's pride in the Pilgrim Fathers, you 
yourself are as plain from the heart as an immigrant." 

"Weren't the Pilgrim Fathers immigrants two hundred 
years ago?" 

She took from her desk a book and read to me. 

Then she opened her arms to me, and breathlessly I felt 
myself drawn to her. Bonds seemed to burst. A suffusion 



OF AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 1 85 

of light filled my being. Great choirings lifted me in space. 
I walked out unseeingly. 

All the way home the words she read flamed before me: 
"We go forth all to seek America. And in the seeking we 
create her. In the quality of our search shall be the nature 
of the America that we create.' ' 

So all those lonely years of seeking and praying were not 
in vain. How glad I was that I had not stopped at the husk, 
a good job, a good living! Through my inarticulate groping 
and reaching out I had found the soul, the spirit of America. 



H 258 83 













.* V> * 



4 ^> 



■<y .!••- % 







VV 

















° V>^ °WlfW : A^, 



^ ° " ° * 



W 










*: 



1 . ^p. * • , i • . o o 



n> 



,^ AUG 83 








f*. 






